


Diplomatic Fox Paws

by Aris Merquoni (ArisTGD)



Category: Frozen (2013)
Genre: BDSM, Bad BDSM Etiquette, Birching, Caning, Consent Issues, Furry, Magical Contracts, Master/Slave, Multi, Orgasm Control, Orgasm Delay/Denial, consent negotiations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-13 16:22:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9132082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArisTGD/pseuds/Aris%20Merquoni
Summary: When one is given a sex slave as a wedding gift, one tries to make the best of it. Even if said slave is someone one never wanted to see again, and the slave contract was enchanted by members of his family to be the pettiest document imaginable.Or: Anna and Kristoff acquire a pet, and Hans tries to deal with a magical contract which includes a clause forbidding him to use furniture except for sexual purposes.





	

The honeymoon had been fantastic. After the wedding, they'd been invited to spend two weeks in Corona as guests of the royal family, which meant Anna and Kristoff had packed their bags, said goodbye to Elsa and Sven and Olaf, and sailed across the sea to a beautiful sunny holiday where everyone was excited to meet them and the food was terrific and they were waited on hand and foot. And then when they got back to Arendelle, Kristoff had taken them up into the mountains, just the two of them (and Sven) for a week of snuggling together in a cabin by a lake, catching fish and staying out under the stars roasting marshmallows. It had been a delightful time, romantic and indulgent and intimate... sometimes really intimate.

Anna blushed and giggled to herself as they took the last turn down the causeway to the castle. It probably wouldn't be as much fun as the time they had sex in the lake or hanging half out the cabin window or in the meadow, but darn if getting Kristoff all to herself in her own bed wasn't a lovely thought.

So it was with no premonition of doom that they tended to Sven, parked Kristoff's sled, and grabbed their luggage to head inside.

Kai stopped them before they got too far. "Princess Anna, you have guests," he said. "And I believe it would be best to see them sooner than later."

"What?" she said, startled. "What's going on?"

"They're in the great hall with her majesty," Kai said, smoothly taking Anna's valise out of her hands. "Please, your highness."

Anna looked at her husband, shrugged, and followed Kai toward the great hall.

"Princess Anna of Arendelle, and her husband, Prince Kristoff of Arendelle," Kai announced. Anna was a little confused--usually they didn't get the full royal proclamation treatment unless there was something really fancy happening--but then she stepped inside and saw who it was.

"Anna," her sister said from her throne. In front of the throne were three men. Two she didn't recognize, but they were tall and blond and kind of vaguely handsome in a way Anna didn't trust any more. The third was Prince Hans.

They were flanked by a couple guards in the livery of the Southern Isles. Anna took a second to get her breath back, then straightened her shoulders and walked all the way across the hall until she was standing next to her sister on the platform. It didn't entirely make up the height difference, but it made her feel better. Kristoff stood just off the platform next to her, which helped even more.

"Your highness!" The taller of the two blond men said, sweeping into a bow. "I'm Prince Erik, of the Southern Isles, and this is my brother, Egon. We heard about the happy occasion of your wedding and thought it only fitting that we come offer you a gift."

Then Erik slapped Hans on the back, and Anna finally figured out what was weird about how Hans was standing, right before he overbalanced and slammed onto his knees.

Hans had been trussed up with his hands chained together behind his back, and further chained to a thick leather collar around his neck. He struggled to sit upright without choking himself, and that's when Anna noticed a few other things. Like, he looked like he'd spent a couple nights in a dungeon without washing. And he had a fox tail.

Wait. What?

Anna tilted her head and tried to get a better look as Hans tried to shrink himself and look smaller. Okay, yeah, that wasn't an optical illusion, that was a fox tail. And ears. His hair had gotten shaggy and the ears were pressed against the side of his head, but they were definitely fox ears. His tail twitched limply and she had to work to keep herself from snorting with laughter.

"No, seriously, what's going on?" she said after a moment. "We sent him back to you."

"We thought you'd like a butt boy," Egon said, before Erik slapped him on the shoulder a little too hard to be genial.

Erik handed Anna a scroll, bowing as he did so. "This will explain things more quickly," he said. "But the short version is that all of us in the Southern Isles regret this diplomatic fracas, and hope to make amends by allowing our brother to work off his errors in your... service."

Raising an eyebrow, Anna pulled the ribbon off the scroll, unrolled it, and started reading.

"What the heck?" she said after a couple lines.

"Um," Kristoff said, reading over her shoulder.

"Wait, what does this mean by... what?"

"Ahhh..."

"Of course, if you don't need him," Erik said, cutting off their combined mutters of disbelief, "we'll be happy to take him away and put him up for auction."

"Yeah," Egon said, "People are always willing to pay for a slave with a talented mouth--ow!" This time Erik's slap missed his shoulder, but hit the back of his head.

Anna looked down at Hans. He was staring down at the floor, his ridiculous fox ears drooping off the side of his head, shifting uncomfortably to try and keep his manacles from putting pressure on his collar and choking him.

Part of her was really enjoying seeing him so miserable. The rest of her, the part she tried to listen to, said that enjoying anyone's suffering was a bad thing, and even Hans really didn't deserve... this.

"You'll have to excuse me," she said. "My husband and I need a moment to discuss this."

"Of course," Erik said, bowing again.

"You wanna take him for a test drive?" Egon said, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively. "OW!"

"Please," Erik said, twisting Egon's arm tighter. "Take as long as you need."

Anna took Kristoff's arm and steered him away from the throne as Elsa cleared her throat and said, "Perhaps we should retire somewhere more comfortable..."

"We cannot do this," Anna said, brandishing the scroll. "I mean, look at this thing!"

"I did," Kristoff said. "And I think it's magic, too, which means all those rules? They're unbreakable."

Anna unrolled the scroll again. "It starts by saying we can only refer to him by a derogatory nickname and gets weird from _there,"_ she said. "He has to sleep on the floor of our room? He can't take that collar off? And that's not even getting to the sex stuff."

"Yeah," Kristoff agreed. "It's, like, who does that? He's their brother!"

"And the sex stuff..." she bit her lip, reading down the contract. "Eeesh. Eeeeeeeeesh."

Kristoff sighed and scratched the back of his neck. "How bad does it get?"

"Well," she said. "Well... he can't have an orgasm unless he gives one of us one, and then we give him permission."

Kristoff frowned. "Like, not even jerking--"

"And he has to, I quote, 'present his body for his masters' use at least once a day,' which couldn't sound creepier if you tried--"

"And he has to sleep on the floor?" Kristoff winced. "That's gonna suck."

Anna stared at the contract until her eyes hurt and the words started to blur, then looked up at Kristoff. "This is so unfair."

He nodded.

"I mean, I don't want this. I don't want Hans in my life again. I don't want to _own_ him or turn him into some kind of... of pet, I want him gone!"

"Yeah," Kristoff agreed.

Anna bit her lip again. "But they sounded serious about selling him to the highest bidder."

Kristoff shrugged. "The kind of people who put their own family in magical sex bondage contracts are probably the kind of people who wouldn't really care where those family wind up."

Anna sighed and looked down at the piece of paper in her hand. "What do I do?"

Kristoff reached out and pulled her into a hug. She leaned into him and breathed in his smell, woodsy and masculine with an overtone of reindeer. It was really comforting at the moment.

"We're married, and I'm with you a hundred percent," Kristoff said. "If you decide to say yes, I understand, and I'll back you. If you want to say no, I'm with you. You didn't make this happen, it's his lousy family. You didn't ask for this."

"I really didn't," she said miserably. "But I feel like I... we... the two of us might be better than any other option he has right now." She laughed sharply. "I didn't think I'd feel sorry for _Hans,_ of all people."

"Okay," he said. "Well, we should probably go tell them."

Anna straightened her shoulders and walked back into the main part of the hall. Kai directed her to one of the reception rooms nearby, where Elsa and Hans' brothers were talking; Hans had regained his footing but not much of his dignity. Standing with the chains on his arms looked almost as awful as kneeling.

"Well?" Erik said, grinning.

Anna gave him her most regal smile, the one she'd copied from her sister. "Thank you for your generous gift," she said. "Does someone have a pen I can borrow?"

Hans' expression was completely blank as she and then Kristoff signed the contract, and it glowed briefly with a warm yellow light. "Wonderful," Erik said. "Congratulations again on your union, and I hope you get much use out of him."

"Yeah," Egon said, "Make sure to give him a good ow ow ow dammit Erik why did you even ask me to come?"

"Why even," Erik said under his breath, guiding his brother out by the ear. "Farewell!"

"Farewell," Elsa said, with barely disguised contempt.

Anna waited until the door closed behind them and then said, "Okay, how do we get all those chains off?"

The ribbon the contract had been tied with was connected to a small iron key. Kristoff quickly unlocked the fetters from Hans' wrists, and unhooked the chain from his collar, but couldn't find any way to get the collar off.

Hans, who had stared at her blankly through the process, opened his mouth as though to interject, then grimaced and gestured at the contract.

"Huh?" Anna said.

"Wasn't there something about talking in there?" Kristoff said.

Anna looked down and skimmed the page. "Um... can't talk unless given permission," she read. "That's interesting."

"You... have permission to speak?" Kristoff told Hans hesitantly.

Hans swallowed, said, "Oh," then, "Thank you." Then he took a breath and said, "The collar doesn't come off."

"It doesn't?" Anna said, frowning.

"It's part of the contract," Hans explained. "It's on for as long as I'm... here."

"Right," Anna said. "Your brothers are weird."

Hans stared at her for a second, then burst out laughing. He doubled over after a second, clutching his sides and shaking, voice pitching higher until he sounded like he was in a full hysterical fit. Anna looked over at Kristoff, dumbfounded. "What'd I say?" she asked, which set Hans off again.

"Oh," Hans finally said. "Weird. Yes. Horrible fucks. Sorry." He straightened up and wobbled on his feet, his new tail twitching. "They really enjoyed this. They just kept coming up with ideas and waiting to see how I felt about them. They kept the ones that made me squirm." He reached up and felt for his ears, now pricked forward, and flattened them down to his head again with his palms.

Anna frowned at him. "Do you want to sit down?"

"No, thank you," Hans said. Then he winced. "I mean yes I do, but--"

"Wait," Anna said. "I remember now." She looked down at the contract again. "There's something in here about furniture."

"What?" Elsa said.

Anna had--well, she hadn't forgotten her sister was there, but she'd been kind of pretending she wasn't while this horribly embarrassing thing was happening. "Well, uh... there are a lot of weird things in here, sis."

Elsa came around Hans and stood next to her, reading over her shoulder. Anna sighed and handed the whole contract over. Elsa would find out about it sooner or later, after all.

Elsa's expression went from confused to appalled as she read, very quickly. "Wait. Wait... okay, 'can only use furniture for sex purposes.' What does that even mean?"

"It means Egon really liked the idea that I have to sit on the floor," Hans muttered.

Elsa read a few more lines, then looked up to meet Anna's eyes. "Anna," she said, and she sounded worried. "Are you sure about this?"

Anna sighed. "No! I'm really not, but..." she gestured at the doorway. "I mean, _you_ talked with them."

"Fair," Elsa said. "Look, I don't like this."

"I don't either," Anna said.

"But if you need anything..." Elsa looked over at Hans. "Anything at all, I'm here to help."

Anna thought for a second, then turned to Hans again. "What was the last time you ate? Or... slept?"

Hans blinked at her. His hands were still pressing his ears to the side of his head, and for a moment she thought he hadn't heard her. "I... it must have been..." he finally said. "I don't remember."

"That's not good," Kristoff said.

"Food first, then sleep," Anna said.

Hans ate standing up at the table, occasionally leaning on it for a minute until whatever pressure the contract was forcing on him won out and he straightened up again. After that, Anna and Kristoff led him to their bedroom, where Anna got out all the extra pillows and blankets and piled them in front of the fireplace in a nest. "Okay," she said, "Think that'll be all right?"

Hans swayed on his feet and nodded.

"Um," Anna said, "You can talk?"

"Thanks," Hans said. "Should be fine, thank you."

"Okay." She looked around the room. "We'll have to find you something to wear, but that can wait until tomorrow, I think?"

"Sure," Hans said.

"Yeah, I have some stuff he can wear until we get him something that fits," Kristoff offered.

"That sounds good," Anna said, relieved. "Okay, Hans, you can sleep here unt--" she stopped talking, startled, as Hans clapped his hands over his face and doubled over in pain. "What..."

"Ah," Kristoff said, "Contract?"

Anna looked down at the document she was still carrying, and opened it up, and there on the third line was 'The slave must not be referred to by his name, or he will be punished.'

"Oh, no," she said. "H--" she caught herself this time, swallowed hard, and said, "Hey, um, I'm really sorry, I didn't mean to..."

Hans took a few deep breaths and straightened up. He stared blankly at her for a moment, then gestured at his throat and the page again.

Meekly, Anna said, "You can talk."

"Please," Hans said when he got his breath back. "Please don't do that again."

"We need to call you _something,"_ Anna said. "'Hey you' isn't going to work."

Kristoff was reading over her shoulder again. "It says we can call you a derogatory nickname. What's that about?"

Hans sighed. "I think Egon had something like 'slave' or 'bitch' in mind," he said.

"No," Anna said flatly.

"Can we just give you another name?" Kristoff asked. "Like, 'Buddy,' or..."

Hans was shaking his head. "No, it's pretty clear it can't be a real name," he said. "I know you're trying to be nice, but... it's fine. Whatever you want."

Anna looked at Kristoff helplessly. "I don't know..."

Inspiration hit less like a flash and more like a snowball to the face, cold and damp. "Um," she said. "How about... 'pet'?"

Hans' ears twitched, then he shrugged. "I think that works," he said. "It doesn't seem to be triggering anything, anyway."

"Okay," she said in relief. "You can sleep here tonight, and we'll try and figure out how to break this as fast as we can. Okay?"

Hans nodded a few times, then sat down on the floor, wrapped himself in a blanket, and stuffed a pillow under his head. He was asleep within moments.

Anna and Kristoff traded another look, then quietly left the room.

Elsa was waiting in the hallway outside. She grimaced and held out her hands. "Welcome home?"

"So are you already missing Corona?" Elsa asked at their own, more sedate dinner.

Anna laughed. "Corona was nice, but I'm glad to be home."

"Yeah," Kristoff agreed. "They were... really friendly. But it was nice to just be somewhere familiar."

"You guys have a good time in the mountains?" Elsa said.

"Yeah, it was... peaceful," Anna said. She glanced at Kristoff and tried to keep from smiling giddily. She wasn't entirely successful.

Elsa smiled down at her plate. "Well, I'm glad you had a nice time. Especially..." she sighed. "Especially considering what you had to come home to."

There was a glum pause.

"Yeah," Anna said. "This is going to be weird."

Kristoff sighed, pushed his empty plate away, and picked up the scroll. "We'd better sit and actually read this through."

"Ugh, you're right," Anna agreed. "I don't want to actually give..." she trailed off. "Wait, do we have to be in the same room with him for using his name to hurt him, or..."

"What's this?" Elsa said.

Anna sighed. "Turns out if we use... his first name, he gets some kind of headache... spasm... thing," she said. "So, uh, we're calling him 'pet.'"

Elsa raised an eyebrow.

Anna sank lower in her seat. "His suggestions were worse."

"They were," Kristoff agreed.

"Okay," Elsa said tentatively. "So... your pet, then." She paused. "Was it because of the ears?"

"You have to admit the ears are kind of adorable," Anna said.

Elsa laughed. "He looks ridiculous."

"He does," Anna agreed. "That's what makes it adorable."

"So what else does your pet have to do?" Elsa asked.

"Well, besides the sex stuff," Kristoff said, unrolling the scroll and holding it flat. "He can't do us any harm, which is nice. He can't use furniture, whatever that means. We can't use his name. He can only sleep on the floor of our room. He has to stand up whenever one of us enters the room. And he can't talk unless one of us gives him permission." He squinted at one of the later lines, then. "Hunh... okay, well, apparently if he breaks the rules, either the contract punishes him or we can. That's... interesting."

"What does it mean 'punish'?" Anna muttered.

Kristoff shrugged. "It doesn't say."

"Hmm." She stared at the scroll in Kristoff's hands, the little piece of paper that even now seemed ridiculous and impossible, but had thrown their entire life into a scramble. "Okay, uh... is that it besides the sex stuff?"

"He also can't take off the collar, but it says the collar will take care of itself, which hopefully means it won't chafe." Kristoff grimaced. "Yeah. And then there's the sex stuff."

"I only had a brief look at that," Elsa said warily, "but..."

Kristoff sighed and put the contract down on the table. "It's about what you'd expect from... those guys."

Anna picked it up again. "I just... ugh." She read over the sex clauses again. "They're not really... imaginative, but I don't want to... to take care of this."

"The no jerking off thing is what gets me," Kristoff muttered.

Elsa shook her head. Anna groaned. "So if we don't want to leave him... waiting, one of us has to have sex with him. Or let him do stuff to us, anyway. And I don't care how responsible I'm being, I don't want him touching me."

"I can take care of it," Kristoff said.

Anna looked up at him, trying not to feel too relieved. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah," Kristoff said. "I mean, sure, I know he's a jerk, but he didn't try to kill _me._ So it's less..." he grimaced. "Immediate?"

"I guess," Anna said.

"We can talk about it later," he said.

Elsa folded her hands on the table. "Well, we can search the library to see if there's anything there about breaking magical contracts," she said. "And I'll ask my council if they can recommend someone. And we can try to contact some experts, at universities, see if we can get some... instructions."

"I can ask Grand Pabbie," Kristoff said.

Anna sighed. "There, see?" she said with forced cheer. "This won't be so bad. A few weeks at most, and we'll figure out how to get Prince H--er, pet--out of here."

"Yeah," Kristoff said. "A few weeks, we can handle that."

Hans was completely asleep when they got back. They changed and ducked under the covers, snuffing out the lights, and lay there silently.

"Okay," Anna said after a moment, "I don't know about you, but I feel way too awkward having sex with... with him on the floor right there."

"Eeeeeeyeah," Kristoff said. "Just a bit."

They lay there quietly for another minute.

"So we have to get this fixed, like, as soon as possible," Anna elaborated.

"Yes," Kristoff agreed. "As soon as we can."

"Good," Anna said. "As long as we're agreed."

"I like agreeing," Kristoff said. "Not so sure about good."

"Right," Anna said. "So. Good night."

"'Nite," Kristoff said.

Just before she dropped off, Anna muttered, "If I ever meet Egon and Erik again, I'm gonna kill them." She thought she heard Kristoff laugh, but she may have already been dreaming.

* * *

At first, Hans awoke slowly, swaddled in blankets, unsure where he was or how he'd gotten there.

Then the contract slammed into his consciousness with a feeling like someone had smashed his head into a brick wall several times over. His whole body started aching and his head was throbbing. Something was Wrong, he'd done something Wrong, and until he got it sorted out he was going to feel like this.

Carefully he opened his eyes and peered around the room. It wasn't even dawn yet, the barest tint of light coming in through the window, but someone was moving around.

Hans scrambled upright and down onto his knees before he really knew what he was doing, pressing his face flat against the rug and trying not to breathe too loudly.

"Uh..." Kristoff said. "You okay, there?" After a few more seconds, he added, "Oh, sorry, you can talk."

Hans took a couple breaths to steady himself. "I... no."

He heard footsteps, and then saw Kristoff's feet, already in boots, a few inches from his nose. "You, uh, you don't have to do that. I mean, I give you permission? Do I need to do that? Sorry, it's kind of my first day."

"Mine, too," Hans muttered into the floor.

"So what's wrong?"

Everything, Hans thought, but through his headache he said, "I did something I wasn't supposed to and you have to punish me."

"Huh?" Kristoff sounded as confused as Hans felt. "What did you do?"

Hans closed his eyes and tried to remember. "I don't know... I..."

Wait. Kristoff and Anna had brought him here, and he'd fallen asleep, but then they'd... left?

"I have to stand up every time you enter a room," he said. "And I was asleep when you came back." He winced. "And I didn't do the... offering. Thing."

Kristoff was silent for a long time. Hans counted his breaths and tried to make his headache subside.

"That's a stupid rule," Kristoff said, finally. "They're both stupid rules."

"Sure," Hans agreed. "But I broke the rules and you have to punish me."

Kristoff shuffled his feet for a second. "How do I do that?"

"I don't know," Hans said through gritted teeth. "Just pick something."

"Okay," Kristoff said after a moment. "Stand up and do ten jumping jacks."

Hans sprang to his feet and started moving. After he finished he felt much warmer, and slightly out of breath. Kristoff was watching him with an unmoved expression.

"Okay, touch your toes," Kristoff said. Hans complied, then straightened up again. Kristoff waved at him negligently. "Okay, consider yourself punished."

Hans frowned, but his headache lifted. Kristoff turned away; he was half-dressed, with his pants on and boots laced up, but only an undershirt covering his torso. Hans watched as he pulled on a sweater, then asked, "Wait, that's it?"

"Did it not work?" Kristoff asked.

"No, it did," Hans said. "It's just... mild calisthenics?"

Kristoff raised an eyebrow. "Would you rather I hit you with my belt?"

"Um," Hans said. A wave of fear and something that felt probably like nausea swept over him. "No, I'm good."

Kristoff smirked. "Thought so. Oh, hey, here. I was going to lend you something to wear."

Hans looked around the room while Kristoff rummaged in his wardrobe. It was still quite dark, though the sky outside was getting brighter. Soon it would be dawn. Anna was curled up on her side of the bed, hair mussed, snoring softly.

"Can I ask if there's a reason you're getting up this early?" Hans asked.

"Yeah, I have a job to get to," Kristoff said.

Hans stared, for a moment unable to understand what he was talking about. He hadn't figured it out by the time Kristoff handed him a pile of clothing. "What?"

Kristoff shrugged. "You know, Royal Ice Master of Arendelle. It's the beginning of harvest season, so I've gotta get up there."

That still didn't make much sense. "Surely you can delegate."

"Not with this stuff," Kristoff said, and flashed him a grin. "Besides, it keeps me from getting bored."

Hans cradled the bundle of clothing--which wasn't going to fit, he could tell already, he was going to look like a child wearing his older brother's castoffs--and shrugged. "I suppose so."

"Don't worry about waking Anna up," Kristoff said as he picked up a bag and headed for the door. "Once she's out, she can sleep through anything. Oh, and when I get back, we should talk." Kristoff grimaced. "About some of that contract stuff."

"Of course," Hans said.

Kristoff's gaze flicked up briefly and he smiled. "Yeah, Anna's right, the ears are kinda cute." Then he was out the door.

Hans was alone, and unfettered, for the first time in... a long time.

Well, he thought, wincing, not entirely alone. And certainly not entirely unfettered. But he wasn't in a cell, he wasn't chained to anything--physically, anyway. And Anna was asleep, so he had some time to himself.

He discovered some of his limits quickly. Thankfully the toilet didn't count as "furniture" for purposes of the contract, but the bathtub did. The sink only counted if he tried to lean any of his weight on it, so he could run water.

Hans washed up as best he could, and shaved, and changed into the clothes he'd been left. The clothes he'd been wearing had once been a pair of blue trousers, matching shirt, and his favorite jacket, but they were probably long past saving. As he'd suspected, Kristoff's clothes were... not comically large, but he looked even stupider in the oversized sweater, even ignoring the way the collar fitted to his neck screwed up the line. The trousers were too long and too loose, and really awkward to try and fit his new stupid irritating tail around. Egon had oh-so- _thoughtfully_ slit a hole in the seat of his last pair, but Kristoff probably wouldn't appreciate the modification. He sighed and suffered as best he could.

When he was done dressing he went back into the bathroom and stared at himself in the mirror. He needed a haircut.

He needed the damn fox ears off his head.

Hans closed his eyes for a moment, then took a long, careful look at himself.

He had spent years training himself, not just how to lie, but how to lie _sincerely._ He'd trained his face and his body not to betray him whenever he said something he knew wasn't true. And more than that, he'd learned that lying was often a case of saying true things in a misleading way, and he'd learned exactly how to mislead, and--

And now these stupid damn ears made it impossible.

He took a deep breath, and another, trying to calm down. Calm, all right. Now. Practice. He was going to get this right if it took all day. If it took months.

He started with fear, since it was one of those basic expressions that was more subtle than it sounded. Carefully, letting himself feel it, before he checked. Yep, he still had it down--eyes just wide enough, all the muscles in his face relaxed, shoulders set--but his ears weren't cooperating. He tried to flatten them back with sheer will, but they stayed stubbornly upright and relaxed.

Ugh.

Oh, okay, _that_ made his ears twitch, all the way back to an expression of "mildly piqued." Great.

He tried again, and again, and again, until he heard footsteps from the bedroom and heard Anna say, "Kristoff? I thought you said--"

Then she stood in the doorway and frowned at him. "Oh. Right. You."

Hans opened his mouth to say something, but all that came out was a squeak. Anna regarded him for a long moment, then said, "You know what, I don't actually want to hear you talk before I have a chance to finish waking up."

That sounded reasonable enough. Hans ducked past her and let her have the bathroom.

He tidied up his nest of blankets and cushions and sat down on the floor next to the fireplace. Water was running in the other room. Hans rubbed at his face and sighed.

This was going to be interminable.

He was at least doing better than he thought he would be. He'd had sleep. He'd had food. It was amazing how much better he felt--almost, he thought bitterly, like he was a real person with rights to his own clothing and privacy and personal expression, not an indentured slave having to conform to a ridiculous number of arbitrary demands.

He sighed. He couldn't think like this. He had to do something or he was going to go insane.

All right.

To get out, he needed to plan. To plan, he needed a goal. To do that, he needed to take stock.

Hans had returned from Arendelle in disgrace, but he thought he'd gotten away with a stern talking-to from his father and an extracted promise to never do it again under any circumstances. But a month later, he'd found himself thrown in the dungeon, strapped to an uncomfortable piece of equipment, and his next two eldest brothers practicing their enchantment skills on his head.

He still wasn't entirely sure if his father knew about all this, as a matter of fact. Not that he'd say anything to his father to try and clear this up. This was humiliating enough as it was.

He'd tried to escape, several times. He'd almost made it just before they landed in Arendelle, actually. Once he'd seen the coastline, he'd suddenly realized what all of Egon's not-so-sly comments about having something special in mind meant.

So. He knew exactly what was in that contract. Fortunately, Kristoff didn't seem the type to take advantage of someone under his power--lack of royal breeding was really showing there--but Anna, well. He may have once underestimated her fortitude, and the magical properties of love, but he was pretty sure he'd gotten a good estimation of her anger at him.

There was that punch to the jaw to consider, after all.

All right. Current stock: all-time low.

He needed to get out of there. Out of the contract, and out of Arendelle. The former was going to be a lot more difficult than the latter, especially since until the contract was broken he couldn't talk and probably couldn't use a desk to write on. So he needed to survive until someone, probably him, figured out how to get him out from under this thing, and then he never needed to see this stupid, snow-covered country ever again.

It kept coming down to needing to play along.

Which had to be wrong. He was a prince, dammit. He wasn't going to play body slave to some naive northern princess and her peasant husband!

Except that he was, because he had to, and because he could do anything if it would get him what he wanted.

He took another deep breath to steady himself, then levered himself onto his knees. The best way to lie to someone--and the only way he had left, damn his stupid brothers--was to believe it himself.

So. He had to make himself believe he was, if not totally fine with this, at least happy to go along if it would make everything easier. And why shouldn't he be? Sure, it was a lot of humiliating garbage, but he'd never needed pride. Pride got in the way of getting things done. He was here to... to make do, he supposed. To do whatever was asked of him until they all figured this out and he could leave. To play along with the rules, which they all agreed were arbitrary and pointless, and make things easier on Anna and Kristoff while they had to host him.

He didn't have much power left, but he had the power to make this whole unpleasant mess go easier. All he had to do was inhabit the role he'd been given for a little while, and it would all be over soon.

He hoped.

The bathroom door opened, and he clambered to his feet. Anna stepped into the room and frowned at him, and he turned the clumsy motion into a bow.

"Hunh," she said, then went to her wardrobe. Hans got back down on his knees and waited.

"You know, it's still creepy even if you're not watching," she said a minute later.

He tried to respond, but all that came out of his throat was a thin whine.

"Ugh, right. Okay, you can talk."

"What--" it always felt strange, the sudden return of speech. He took a deep breath through a suddenly clear throat and asked, "What would you have me do?"

"I'd have you leave," Anna muttered under her breath. "Ugh, just go in the bathroom or something until I'm done, okay?"

"As you wish," Hans said.

He closed the door behind him and leaned his head against it until the damn contract decided that leaning against doors was using furniture and shot him another headache.

"Ow, ow, ow," he muttered quietly, and started pacing.

He didn't have long to wait, fortunately. In just a few minutes, Anna opened the door, fully dressed with her hair in braids. She was watching him with her mouth set in a thin line, and he hastily bowed again.

"Look, I know this is super-awkward and we're all trying to deal," Anna said. "So I'm sorry if I'm a little harsh, but you did try to kill me."

Hans winced and nodded.

"Right, uh, you can talk again." She looked him up and down. "And we've gotta get you some new pants. Make that our first stop?"

"I would appreciate it," he said carefully.

Walking around the castle was only slightly less mortifying than it had been the previous day. He wasn't in the company of his brothers, which was an improvement, but he was still wearing the collar, he still had the ears and tail, and now his clothes didn't fit.

Fortunately, a visit to the tailor would see the latter problem fixed shortly. The tailor had some ideas of working around the damn tail, which was nice to hear, and promised suitable clothing soonest. Anna had meanwhile left to visit with her sister, leaving Hans at loose ends after the fitting; he found himself in the library, and morosely started going over the shelves for something engaging enough to take his mind off his present situation.

Nothing came to mind, so he picked up a book on theory and practice of magical contracts instead. If it didn't promise any answers, at least it might provide a good night's sleep.

He was midway through the third incredibly dense chapter, seated on the floor next to the clock and trying to remember not to lean, when Kristoff found him. "Oh, hey," Kristoff said as Hans scrambled awkwardly to his feet. "Did you miss lunch? Anna was looking for you."

Hans looked over at the clock, startled to find it was a quarter past five. "Ah," he said, and precisely nothing else.

"Oh, uh, you can talk," Kristoff said.

"Thanks," Hans said. He bent down and picked up the book, marking his place before returning it to the shelf. "I did miss lunch, as a matter of fact."

"Well, dinner's almost ready," Kristoff said. "Though... ahh... actually, you know what, it can wait until you've had food."

Hans' interest was piqued, though the tone of Kristoff's voice wasn't encouraging. "What is it?"

"Oh, well, I just wanted to talk with you about some of this contract stuff," Kristoff said. He looked around awkwardly, not meeting Hans' eyes. "You know, the sex stuff."

Hans had a lifetime of practice not wincing. It didn't help much, as he felt his ears go flat, but at least his face was still under his control. "Yes?"

"Just, you know, how that whole thing about not being able to get off is ridiculously unfair," Kristoff said.

That was a relief. He hadn't really believed that Kristoff, or Anna for that matter, had the stomach to use him in any of the colorful ways his brothers had suggested, but it was nice to have that confirmed.

"Anyway, I just wanted to offer," Kristoff continued, apparently unaware of Hans' reaction, "Just, I mean, in case... ah, hell. How do you feel about sex with men?"

Hans raised an eyebrow. "Men in general, or you in particular?"

Kristoff laughed sharply. "Well, it would be me in particular, so... yeah."

Hans shrugged carefully. "You're entitled to do anything you want with me, of course--"

"Agh," Kristoff said. "Not like that. I mean, look, we both know what that contract says, you can't come unless you get one of us off, and Anna, well... you kind of set that bridge on fire, okay?"

He knew. He knew very pointedly that he'd been put in this position, on purpose, because of his prior behavior. "Yes, I see," he said. "So you're, what. Offering?"

"Yeah," Kristoff said, and shrugged again. "You know... whatever you'd like."

Kristoff probably didn't entirely mean that, but it was... kind. "I appreciate your pity," Hans said out loud.

"No, look, it isn't pity, it's... this whole thing is fucked up, right?" Kristoff said, sounding angry, now. "I don't mind. I don't--I've had sex with other guys, just friendly stuff, fooling around, and--it's like that."

"We're not really friends, though," Hans pointed out.

"No, but," Kristoff pointed out, "The alternative is living like a monk until we figure out how to break this contract. Worse than a monk. I don't care about holy orders, I'm sure most of those guys still jerk off."

Hans laughed. "Okay. Touche. I'll... I'll think it over, all right? I just--"

"Let's get something to eat," Kristoff cut him off. "It's not like you have to decide right away."

Dinner was still awkward. Eating on his feet was slightly preferable to eating sitting on the floor, but it was a difficult proposition. After dinner, fortunately, his new clothes were ready, and he could return Kristoff's ill-fitting pants.

And then it was evening and time for bed, and.

The contract wasn't exactly a living thing, but it was like a drumbeat in the back of hie head that got louder and louder until he got on his knees next to Anna and Kristoff's bed and waited until one of them--until Kristoff noticed him. "Hey?" Kristoff asked. "Uh, you can talk."

"I," Hans said, and attempted to figure out the absolute least embarrassing way to say it, "If there's anything that I can do for either of you. Personally. I'm... available."

"Oh," Anna said.

"Ah," Kristoff said. "No, thanks."

Hans nodded as a knot of tension in his shoulder suddenly relaxed. He stood, then went to the nest of pillows and blankets he'd been provided, and curled up on the floor again supported by cushions listening to Anna and Kristoff whisper at each other, and... well, it wasn't death or torture, he supposed, but it wasn't much of a life.

His last thought before he dropped off to sleep was that something was going to have to give.

The next few days passed much the same. Kristoff woke early. Hans tried to make it a point to get up at the same time, neaten his sleeping area, and clean himself up. It allowed him to be out of the way when Anna woke up. It was easier and less awkward to avoid her entirely.

He spent most days in the library, or walking through the gardens, or anywhere else where people wouldn't _see_ him. It was difficult. He usually liked talking with people, but now, between the stupid ears and tail and the fact that he couldn't really talk unless Anna or Kristoff were there, he found the entire process onerous. Even with a reservoir pen and a pad of paper, which he had liberated and now carried with him, communication was a frustration he'd rather just avoid.

So he read about contracts. He stayed out of the way.

He got on his knees at the end of the day, waited for Anna or Kristoff to give him permission to speak, and asked if either of them wanted to fuck him.

That didn't get any easier, either. Day after day, a sort of formless dread settled into his stomach until he finally was there, by their bedside, the words tumbling out of his mouth in an endless excruciating chain.

Kristoff's awkward overtures just made it worse, somehow. "Is there a way we can give you permission to just... stop asking?" Kristoff said one night.

The combination of anger and shame in the back of Hans' throat came out as laughter. "No, we're kind of stuck with it," he said.

"Well, uh, thanks but no thanks," Kristoff said. It was somehow worse than Anna's dismissive "NOPE!" from the other side of the bed.

After a few days he stopped trying to come up with something cute to say. They all knew what was going on. Half the time Anna cut him off, anyway.

It had been a week, trying not to think about how long he was going to be stuck there, trying to put a brave face on the situation and avoid his 'owners' and be polite to everyone, when Kristoff answered his forced overture with another polite "No thanks, get some sleep," and something like a dull mallet clanged in his head, and instead of moving he bowed his head and said, "Please?"

There was a long silence. Hans stared at the floor in resignation until he heard Anna sit up in bed and ask, "Wait, what?"

Then he realized what he'd said. He clapped his hand over his mouth and froze, mortified. "Nnnn," he choked. "No, sorry, I didn't--"

"You okay?" Kristoff asked, rolling out of bed, and Hans scrambled backwards until he reached his own bedding, dug himself under the blanket and curled up with his arms thrown over his head, heartbeat hammering in his ears.

What was that what was that what was that.

There was quiet for a moment, then the soft sound of Kristoff's footsteps. Hans took a deep breath, then forced himself to sit up and take the blankets off his head because he wasn't ten years old any more.

Kristoff knelt down on the carpet next to him. "You, uh, wanna talk about this?"

"Less than almost anything in the world," Hans said.

"'Kay," Kristoff said. "Just... I think I get it. I mean, getting rejected sucks, even if it's something you don't really want to do in the first place."

Hans took another deep breath and nodded. "That's more or less it, yes," he said through the thick feeling of confusion fogging his mind. "Thanks."

"Look, if you want to talk tomorrow..." Kristoff offered. "I mean, maybe not about _this,_ but... the whole... other section of the contract, you know?"

Hans nodded, but he still couldn't look Kristoff in the eye. "I'll find you, how's that?"

"Okay." Kristoff reached over and touched him on the shoulder, gently. "Get some sleep."

Hans hated it when people touched him. One of the benefits of being royalty was it tended to limit the population of people who were allowed to handle his person, and one of the reasons he hated his brothers so much was they believed themselves immune to any consequences for manhandling him. But for just a moment he desperately wanted to lean into Kristoff's touch, let his hand slide farther along his shoulder, maybe rest against his body just for a moment...

He shook himself and buried himself in bedding again. He'd deal with it tomorrow. It was going to be fine.

* * *

"So, uh," Kristoff told Anna after dinner the next day, "I talked to... y'know, pet, about all that... stuff."

Anna made a face. The last week had been weird. Thinking about Hans and sex was weird. She'd hoped that some of the letters that she and Elsa had written to universities and magical specialists would get back with an answer before this problem came up, but so far they'd just received requests for clarification and apologies that the person they'd tried to reach was on vacation. She'd intended to keep ignoring Hans for as long as she could, but that didn't seem like an option.

"Okay, yeah, what about?" she asked when Kristoff looked annoyed.

"About the sex thing," Kristoff said.

Ugh. "I thought you said you were okay with it?" Anna asked, suddenly nervous.

"No, I am, it's fine," Kristoff said, holding up his hands. "But he asked something and I realized I didn't know the answer, which is if you were happier being there or not knowing anything about it."

Anna thought for a second before realizing she wasn't going to untangle that sentence. "I'm sorry, what?"

"I mean..." Kristoff looked around. He'd followed Anna back to the room she'd commandeered as a solar, which mostly meant that it was stuffed full of her old hobbies she'd tried and discarded while growing up. There were stacks of embroidery supplies, old books, and front and center an easel and canvas, as she'd thought about taking up painting again now that she was aware exactly how flammable paint was and Kai and Gerta had probably forgotten that time with the curtains. In any case, the two of them were the only people there, and if Kristoff wanted to talk about sex, it was probably the most private place in the castle, even including their bedroom which was now Hans' room as well.

Hans. Sex. Ugh.

"Okay, so, you obviously don't have to do anything you don't want," Kristoff said. "But I did want to check if you'd rather... y'know, be in the room to see what we do, or if you'd rather not have to hear about any of it. I can go either way."

Anna scowled. "Why would I want to watch you have sex with... with pet?"

"Well, I dunno," Kristoff said. "I just thought, if you were having sex with someone else and I didn't know what was happening, it would bother me more than if I could watch."

Anna picked up one of her brushes and started fiddling with it thoughtfully. "I suppose..."

"And, hey, you might like it," Kristoff said, grinning. "You never know."

Anna bit her lip and thought it over. "Well..."

"You don't have to do anything you don't want to."

Anna shrugged. "If I hate watching I can always close my eyes, right? And I can change my mind later. It's a good idea." She set the brush down, leaned over, and gave her husband a kiss. "You're right, I probably would be tormented if I didn't know."

Kristoff grinned. "I'll try to make it worth your while."

"You'd better," she said. "I'm still not getting any, remember?"

That seemed to be it, until it was bedtime, and she suddenly realized that Kristoff meant that he and Hans had been negotiating about _that night._ Which... well.

"Don't mind me," she said, stepping behind the screen by her wardrobe and getting her nightgown off its hangar. She took a few deep breaths, loosened her bodice, and wriggled out of her dress and into her nightgown as quickly and as quietly as she could.

When she got back, Hans was kneeling next to the bed, and Kristoff was sitting next to him, stripped down to his undershirt. "Well, that's no good, honey," she said, climbing onto the bed. "How's he going to get you off if you still have your pants on?"

Kristoff laughed, and Hans cracked a smile. "She has a good point," Hans said.

Anna leaned back against the headboard and crossed her arms behind her bed. "Go ahead, just pretend I'm not here."

Hans shrugged and reached forward for Kristoff's belt. "Fine by me."

Kristoff let Hans do most of the work, though he did help scoot his pants off his butt. Hans' expression when he had Kristoff's cock in his hand finally was suitably respectful, enough that Anna felt kind of smug. _Yeah,_ she thought to herself as Hans ran his hand up and down the length of Kristoff's erection, _I guess foot size does matter, sometimes._

She was a bit startled when Hans leaned over and put the head of Kristoff's cock in his mouth, though. She hadn't thought Hans... well, that he was the type. Or that he knew how, really, though she guessed the basics weren't that complicated. Though from the way Kristoff gasped in surprise and leaned his head back, it looked like Hans had studied more than the basics.

Anna found herself leaning forward to get a better view. Hans had his eyes closed and was leaning into the blowjob, hand working on Kristoff's shaft and his mouth bobbing up and down the tip. His eyes were closed in concentration, but his adorable fox ears were perked upright and his tail was twitching. She wasn't quite sure what that meant, but it made him look happy. Kristoff reached out and cradled the back of Hans' head, his thumb rubbing at a spot behind Hans' ears, and Hans moaned happily and tilted his head into the scritching. It was simultaneously adorable--the fox ears were really cute!--and incredibly hot, watching Hans on his knees taking her husband's cock into his mouth.

Feeling suddenly wicked, Anna licked her lips and pressed her hand into her crotch.

Hans was moaning throatily as he sucked Kristoff off, and Kristoff's breathing was getting heavier and sharper as he got closer to his orgasm. Hans swallowed audibly and bobbed his head forward, and then he was actually getting _more_ of Kristoff's dick in his throat, which was something Anna was suitably impressed by.

"Oh, fuck," Kristoff said, "fu--huh--agh!"

Hans made a noise that sounded way too pleased with himself as Kristoff tightened his fingers in Hans' hair and came. Hans sat back on his heels, smirking, as Kristoff got his breath back, and grinned at Kristoff's thumbs-up reaction.

"So, uh, yeah," Kristoff said. "You have permission to get off. Uh, you don't have to do it here, if you want some privacy--"

"Hm, I don't know," Anna said.

They both looked at her, startled.

Anna jerked her chin at Hans. "Why don't you stay right where you are?"

Hans' eyes went wide, and then he looked her up and down, pausing his appraisal at her well-placed hand. He raised his eyebrows at her and she couldn't help smirking.

"Ah," he said quietly.

"Come on," she said. "Or don't you want to?"

That made Hans smile again. His hands went to his own fly, and he unbuttoned his pants until he could get out his own cock, and started fisting it slowly as he gave Anna a challenging look.

She put her hands back behind her head--both of them--and smirked harder.

Hans nodded to himself and went back to focusing on his masturbation. Kristoff scooted back a bit on the bed and gave Anna a concerned look, but she just waved him off.

Hans licked his palm and took a firmer grip on his dick, his eyes fluttering closed in concentration. For a few minutes, Anna couldn't hear any noise but Hans' breathing and the rushing of blood in her ears. Maybe this wasn't as compassionate as Kristoff wanted her to be, but it was a hell of a lot more fun.

And when Hans did come, spattering semen all over his nice new trousers, Anna clapped her hands together and grinned. "Now, that looked like you enjoyed yourself."

Hans nodded, tried to say something, then shrugged and smiled instead.

Anna felt her grin turning wicked. "Wanna do it again?"

Hans looked startled, then wary.

"Oh, c'mon, nothing bad," Anna said. She looked over at Kristoff, who raised an eyebrow but no objection. "I just wondered if you wanted to get over here and put your mouth to good use again."

Hans' ears perked up and his tail twitched, even though he kept his expression calm. She had to force down a giggle. Finally, he shrugged, and started climbing onto the bed.

"Ah," Anna said when he'd put his hands on the duvet. "Why don't you take those clothes off, first?"

Ah, that was interesting. Hans' ears dipped even though his expression kept steady, and he looked suddenly unhappy. But he didn't hesitate in unbuttoning his shirt and skinning out of his undershirt. He got his pants off as he climbed onto the bed, and then Anna could see the stripe of fur running down his spine to his tail.

"Oh," she said, and reached out to touch it.

Hans flinched, and she drew her hand back, startled. He stared at her for a long moment, then shook himself and lay down, on his front, bracing himself.

"Hey," she said, and he looked up. "You have permission to talk."

He watched her for another couple seconds, then rolled his eyes theatrically. "I've been branded with bad ideas," he said nonchalantly though the twitching of his ears belied his casual tone. "Another gift from my brothers, courtesy their endless imagination for making me look stupid."

"You don't look stupid," Anna said. She reached out, hesitated briefly, then ran her hand down the fur on his neck, starting right below his thick leather collar. His fur was downy-soft under her fingers, and Hans' shoulders seemed to unclench as she stroked him.

He lifted his head again and propped his chin up on his hands. "I appreciate that," he said. "And... that feels kind of... really nice, actually."

"Yeah?" Kristoff said from Hans' other side, and leaned over and rubbed Hans' lower back, down to his tail.

"Ahhhhh yeah," Hans said, blinking quickly as though to clear his head. "Yeah, I... hunh."

Anna grinned and scooted back against her pillows. "Well, now that's settled. C'mere."

Hans looked up and grinned, then crawled over in between her thighs. And ahhhh, yes, he did have some idea what to do with his mouth, as he gently pushed the hem of her nightshirt up over her legs and kissed the inside of her knee, her thigh, across her stomach, and then moved his mouth down lower, licking gently until he reached her slit, then lapping eagerly.

Whoever had given Hans blowjob lessons obviously hadn't ignored the cunnilingus half of the course, and he was an enthusiastic student. He used his hands to cradle her hips and tilt her clit right where he--and she--wanted it. Anna groaned as he licked straight over the white-hot center of her passion, closing her eyes and letting her head fall back as Hans noisily and attentively saw to her.

It had been a few days without anything of the sort, after all.

Anna rolled her hips into Hans' mouth and opened her eyes just wide enough to watch him, no more hesitation or resistance on his features now as he pressed his mouth against her and used his tongue to lick deep as he could inside her. She gasped and wiggled her legs wider and he did it again, then bumped her clit with his nose, and she squealed. "Mmm," he said, right up against her so she felt it, and licked again and again until she was panting, almost there, right on the edge, and then he backed off and licked softly again until she grabbed him by the hair and dragged his mouth right back where she wanted it.

It was his whine of protest and the feel of his scalp under her fingers as much as his tongue that pushed her into her orgasm, not that she was going to admit _that_ any time soon.

When Hans looked up at her he was wide-eyed and a little dazed, but he looked at least as satisfied as she did. Well, maybe not quite. After all, she'd had hers, but Hans was panting and looking up expectantly at her, ears at attention and tail twitching, manfully not reaching after his dick.

Anna smiled and sat up straighter. "C'mon," she said. "Lay back, relax. Enjoy yourself."

"I guess it is nice to be on a bed," Hans said, and obligingly rolled onto his back.

"Go on," Anna said when he looked at her queryingly. "Put on a show."

Hans reached for his dick and had started stroking, slowly, when Kristoff cleared his throat and said, "You know we have to give him permission to--"

"I know," Anna cut him off, and Hans looked nervous again. "He doesn't have permission yet."

Hans raised an eyebrow and she smiled sweetly. "Go on," she encouraged him, and reached out to touch him, trailing her fingers along the skin below his collar and then down to his nipples. "Just because you can't come doesn't mean you shouldn't enjoy it."

Hans thrust his hips, skin slipping against skin, and closed his eyes as she toyed with him.

Kristoff watched her for a moment, then gave her a concerned look. Anna shrugged and scratched Hans behind the ears, making him moan appreciatively. Kristoff didn't exactly move to join in, but he put his hand on Hans' shoulder, and after a moment Hans reached up his free hand to hold onto it.

"That's right," Anna said as Hans started working his hand more aggressively. "Just because you can't get off, doesn't mean you shouldn't enjoy it, right?"

Hans whined in the back of his throat and nodded.

Anna slid her hand down Hans' chest to his stomach, down the line of hair below his navel, down to his dick. He gasped and craned his neck to look as she slid her fingers around his cock and started stroking, then groaned and lay his head back on the bed.

"Like that?" she asked.

Hans moaned and nodded again.

"Well, good," she said, and leaned down next to his ears. "I _order_ you to come," she hissed.

Hans' eyes flew open for a moment, then his hips jerked against her hand and he came hard. His hands gripped the bedspread and his body seemed to seize up as the orgasm rolled over him, and then he was panting, loose-limbed, stomach and chest painted with his own semen and hands limply reaching up to cover his face.

"Wow," Anna said.

Hans laughed softly.

"Yeah, that was a heck of an encore," Kristoff agreed. "You okay, pet?"

Hans nodded a few times, then winced and scrambled to his feet.

"Wow," Anna said, suddenly feeling guilty. "That kicks in fast. You okay?"

Hans nodded again, then gestured. "Uh, sorry," Anna said, "You can talk."

"Fine, thank you," Hans said, then looked down at himself and grimaced slightly. "I should probably clean up, though."

"Yeah, probably," Kristoff agreed.

"Unless there's anything else you'd like me to do," Hans said.

Anna was about to answer but it turned into a yawn. "Oh wow, sorry, not a judgment on your performance," she said to his amused look. "Just... I think it's time to turn in."

"Sounds good," Kristoff agreed.

Hans shrugged, then bent down to gather his clothes. He wrinkled his nose at the stains on his pants, then tucked the offending fabric into the crook of his arm and headed for the bathroom, tail waving behind him.

Anna smirked and lay back on the bed again. Kristoff crawled up next to her and tapped her on the nose. "So," he said. "You changed your mind."

She felt herself flushing. "I'm sorry," she said. "I should have asked you--"

"It's okay," he said, and kissed her. A long pause later, he added, "I'm just checking that you're okay, because I know you said--"

"Yeah, well," Anna said. "You were right. It _was_ hot." She thought for a moment, then added, "And I don't know, something about--well, he seemed to enjoy it, anyway."

Kristoff raised an eyebrow. "You absolutely sure?"

"Look at his ears!" Anna insisted, then pouted when Kristoff's dubious expression remained unmoved. "And he did try to kill me."

"I'm not worried so much about him," Kristoff said. "I'm worried about you."

Anna stared at him. "I don't get it."

The water was running in the other room. Kristoff sighed and lay down on his back. "Okay, well... I know what you're doing, and I know that if you're both getting off on it it's fine," he said. "But if you don't care about if he's okay or not, that's going to mess with you. You start making bad decisions that way."

The tiny pang of guilt she may have been suppressing came flooding back. "Ugh," she said. "I don't want to think about Hans' feelings."

There was a yelp and a thud from the other room.

Anna slapped her hand across her mouth and winced. "Oh no."

Kristoff pushed himself out of bed and trotted to the bathroom, opening the door. There was the sound of muffled voices, and then Kristoff came back.

Anna pulled her pillow out from under her head and put it over her face. "Is he okay?" she asked.

"He'll be okay," Kristoff said. He cuddled up next to her and pulled the pillow off her face. "But he's asked that it not happen again."

"It was an accident," Anna said.

"I know," Kristoff said. He sighed. "At least we know it works even if he's not in the same room, now."

"That's awful," she said. "I mean, what if his brothers start talking about him, and--"

"It must have some kind of range, or maybe it's just us," Kristoff said. "In any case, cut it out."

"I'm trying," she protested.

"Well," Kristoff said, tapping her nose, "try harder." He glared at her until she stuck her tongue out at him. "And by the way, we are responsible for him, so we do have to think about his feelings. That's how this thing works."

Anna sighed and closed her eyes. She kept them shut until the water turned off and the bathroom door opened.

"Pet?" she said, sitting up. Hans paused in his journey to his pillow nest. He was only wearing his underwear, and his ears were pulled back to his head. "I'm sorry," she said meekly. "I really am."

Hans looked down at his feet and shifted his weight side to side. "I appreciate that," he finally said.

"We'll get this fixed," Anna promised. "And soon."

"I hope so, your highness," Hans said, then crossed the rest of the room to the fireplace and pulled the blankets around him.

Anna sighed.

"You don't have to like each other," Kristoff whispered, then rolled over and put out his light. In the dimness, he pulled Anna close and hugged her until she relaxed enough to drift off to sleep. "And you know, you don't have to have sex with him, either," she thought he said, but that was silly enough that she didn't give it any thought.

* * *

Hans woke, sore, but feeling better than he had in a while.

It took him a few minutes to try and work out why. He'd gotten hit with the contract again before he'd gone to bed, and that had smarted at the time. But now... the headache was gone, and he just felt sort of settled. Relaxed. Even though he'd been sleeping on the floor for the last few days and had to do anything that Anna and Kristoff wa...

Ah yes the sex that had happened hadn't it.

Hesitantly, he looked around to make sure he wasn't being watched--Kristoff was already out the door, and Anna was still snoring, so he was alone--and then ran his fingers through his own hair and to the back of his head, behind his stupid ears. Remembered Kristoff cradling his head.

Remembered Anna's fingers in his hair. And on his body. And--

Something. Something glorious.

No, he needed to stop thinking like that. He was doing his job, that was all, biding his time until they could break the contract and finally taking up Kristoff's offer for an orgasm, and that was all. That was it. Everything else that had happened was just, well, fancies that had gotten out of hand.

This was going to be fine.

He spent the day in the library again. He'd made it most of the way through the book on contracts, but it hadn't given him any insights. There were a couple of related books on the shelves, but his head was starting to hurt from too much reading.

Going outside where people could see him--ugh--was an option, but probably more trouble than it was worth. Elsa was holding court in the great hall, and Anna was... wherever Anna spent her days. Kristoff wasn't back from his ice business--ice farming? Ice harvesting? What was the verb for hacking ice out of a lake?--and Hans was more or less at loose ends.

He started wandering the castle, looking through empty hallways and rooms. Arendelle Castle had been closed up for so many years that even during Elsa's coronation it had felt empty and stagnant, but it was starting to warm up, like a flower slowly unfurling its petals. But there were still plenty of areas that just didn't have enough people passing through them to feel anything but ghostly. He drifted through, feeling a bit like he was haunting the outer reaches of the castle, until he found himself back in the gallery.

Anna had shown him the gallery when he was running around the castle after her trying to guarantee his seduction was going to take, but he'd mostly only retained enough information to parrot her own opinions back to her. He took some time to wander and appraise their collection. A few local artists, mostly working in Dutch style, and a lot of French Rococo, which if he recalled correctly Anna loved.

Hans wondered if Kristoff liked art. If he liked any of Anna's hobbies. How the hell a princess had wound up married to a peasant, and if their marriage had anything holding it together. Certainly not property or politics.

After lunch he spent more time wandering, bored enough that he considered going outside again, though the difficulty in commandeering a horse without a voice stymied him. Improvisation was a lot more difficult when one had to leave a written record.

So when Kristoff returned in the evening and started to suggest that if Hans wanted, there could be a repeat of the nicer parts of the previous evening, it wasn't just desire for an orgasm driving his enthusiastic response, it was crippling boredom.

Kristoff was surprisingly handsy when they got back to the bedroom. The previous night they'd both been diffident and formal, but as soon as the door closed Kristoff was close behind him, touching hesitantly at first, then pressing his body close and nuzzling at the nape of Hans' neck, right where the leather of the collar pressed if he leaned his head too far back. Hans closed his eyes and leaned into the touch until Kristoff slipped his arms around him to steady him.

"Mmmm," Hans said as Kristoff's hands started wandering up his torso. Kristoff had given permission, so he continued, "Where do you want me?"

"Bed?" Kristoff said. "If we both get naked I'm sure that counts as sex purposes."

Hans laughed a bit sardonically as he started taking off his jacket and shirt.

After a day of solitude and boredom, having Kristoff run his fingers and mouth over every part of his body was balm to his soul. Hans immediately took back all his uncharitable thoughts about Kristoff's marriage. If Kristoff gave this much attention to Anna, she'd made a wise and considered decisionoooooohhhh--

Hans closed his eyes and leaned his head back as Kristoff's mouth enveloped his cock, and maybe he couldn't come but it felt divine. He lay there, feeling his breath catch in his throat and his toes curl as Kristoff's huge callused hands pressed his hips to the mattress and Kristoff's hot mouth worked up and down the length of his dick. Fuck but it was glorious. Fuck but he hadn't been sucked off in a long time. Fuck but if only he could--if only--

"Starting without me?"

Hans blinked his eyes open to find that he'd thrown his arm across his face. Lowering it, he turned his head to see Anna, standing next to the bed with an amused expression on her face.

Kristoff took his mouth off Hans' dick long enough to respond, "I didn't think you'd mind."

"I don't," Anna replied, and sat down on the bed next to Hans' head, still fully dressed. She reached over and trailed her fingers over his forehead, then reached under his head to scratch, at the same time that Kristoff went back to sucking him off, and ah, that was, that was nice, that was better than nice, that was fantastic.

Anna hmm'ed softly. "I hope you're not letting him come already."

Hans whined in the back of his throat at the reminder. Kristoff took his mouth off his dick-- _again_ \--and chuckled. "No, not yet."

"Good," Anna said. "I want him motivated."

Motivated for what, Hans wondered. He heard shifting of fabric, but he got a little distracted when Kristoff started sucking him off again.

Then Anna pressed his hands back onto the bed and climbed on top of him, pinning his arms to the mattress with her legs and lifting her skirts to her waist. 'Oh,' he had time to think, before she lowered herself onto his face and he could press his mouth up against her sex and drink deeply of that chalice. Mmmmmm.

He could barely move his arms and for a moment he felt he might not be able to breathe, but she shifted her weight so that she was resting above him, not on top of him, and he only had to lift his head and tilt his chin and he could lick, ah, there, Anna's delicious womanly taste, that was what he wanted. It was heady, the taste of her and the feel of Kristoff licking him, feeling good and properly appreciated and satisfied and ohh, yes, he moaned into her slit as he felt Kristoff swallowing him down, slick and hot and oh, yes, yes--

Anna grabbed him by the hair and forced his mouth up to her clit, and he gasped but got the idea quickly, tonguing at her until she cried out and came, keening and grinding herself against his mouth for long seconds until she finally released her fingers and let him slump back against the bed. She held out her arms for a second, looking dazed, then carefully reached sideways and levered herself off his shoulders and onto the bed next to him.

Kristoff had paused briefly in his oral attentions, but he sucked the head of Hans' cock into his mouth again like a wet furnace and Hans gasped and arched his back to try and get deeper. It was like an ache, now, through his body, a need to come, and he knew he couldn't but he squirmed and tried anyway.

"Aww," Anna said. He opened his eyes--when had he closed his eyes!--to see her leaning over him, smiling, reaching up to stroke his hair. "Do you want to come?"

Hans nodded, quickly, several times.

"Awwwwww," Anna said, then leaned down and hissed, "Come."

Hans' muscles snapped taut as the orgasm crashed into him, as he whimpered and keened and twisted, trying to get more of his cock in Kristoff's mouth, trying to feel everything. And finally he collapsed breathless, gasping, shuddering, as Kristoff climbed onto the bed next to him and Anna petted his hair.

As soon as he had his breath back, the contract slammed into him.

 _Dammit,_ he thought as he grabbed his head, piercing pain in his temples, _dammit, fuck no, what now--_

"Pet?" Anna asked, and Kristoff said, "Hey, permission to talk, what's wrong?"

"Contract," he gasped. "Didn't stand up--"

"Oh, phooey," Kristoff said, then, "I'll take care of it. Roll over."

The headache vanished. Hans blinked a few times, then obligingly rolled onto his stomach.

"Get your tail out of the way," Kristoff said. Hans curled his tail onto his back without much thought--he had that much control, anyway, then yelped out loud as Kristoff brought a hand down on his ass, hard. The second swat caught him off guard a moment later.

"There," Kristoff said, flopping back down onto the mattress. "You're punished."

Hans knew he was blushing. He was staring, he was dazed, he was startled--but Kristoff was right, it was certainly punishment, and the headache was gone, and the fact he was still feeling confused and dizzy just meant, well, it just meant--

"Feeling better, pet?" Anna asked, saving him from his confused thoughts. He nodded obligingly. "Good," she said, "Because I wanted to watch you lie there and jerk off while you watch my husband fuck me."

Strictly speaking, Hans thought as he felt another flush of heat rush through his body, he should not find the proposition as attractive as he did.

Anna lay back and Kristoff climbed on top of her, and Hans rolled over onto his side--his ass was still stinging, but he was already hard again, and he moaned as he took his erection in hand and started stroking. Kristoff slipped his fingers inside Anna and she sighed softly and arched her hips against him. Hans bit his lip and leaned back, presenting himself like--well, like she'd asked him to, because--

Fuck there was nothing that was going to plan about this was there--

He closed his eyes briefly to resettle himself and sighed. This was fine. More than fine, actually. He felt amazing, like all his nerves were awake, he could feel the anticipation curling in his stomach spring-taut, and Anna was looking over at him and grinning wickedly and then she closed her eyes as Kristoff thrust inside her and Hans' entire body went _oh_ like he was the one getting fucked.

He couldn't come, he knew it, but he was furiously sliding his dick through his hand as though he could, and he was pushing himself to the edge and hovering there watching and staring as Kristoff nuzzled Anna's neck, pushed her hips back until she was bent double, fucking her deep. Hans groaned and kept himself from reaching out and touching her, touching them, by sheer force of will holding himself to where he'd been told to stay.

Anna reached out and stroked his hair, then tangled her fingers in it. The twist of pain in his scalp held him focused, gave him pressure and presence, and he let it anchor him as he watched them fuck (gloriously, they fucked gloriously,) until Kristoff said "Anna, I'm gonna come--"

"Good," Anna said, and Hans felt a stab of jealousy that it wasn't _him--_

But Kristoff was gasping and thrusting harder into her, and Anna moaned and dug her heels into the bed to push her hips up to meet his ferocity, and Hans was left whimpering and waiting and twisting as they kissed sweetly and Anna curled her fingers in his hair.

"I think pet wants to come again," Anna said conversationally, and Hans felt his ears twitch against her fingers. "Hmmm."

"I think that's fair," Kristoff said.

"Hmmm," Anna said again. "You might be too nice."

Hans whimpered again.

Kristoff kissed Anna one last time, then rolled off onto the bed on her other side. "Whoof. Well, I'm tapped out, anyway."

"I guess that just leaves me," Anna said, but she hardly sounded upset. "Come clean me up, pet, and I might let you come."

It actually took him half a second before he realized what she meant, but then he was diving between her legs again, and he didn't care about the taste, sweet and bitter all at once, only how he could make her moan, make her throw her head back again, make her shudder and grab at his hair and buck into his mouth and come--

He may have whined as she took her time stretching out her limbs and patting him on the head, but he still had one hand on his dick and he was aching for it, he'd never been the type to demand a second round before now but since it was being offered he _wanted_ it, badly, so badly, if he'd had his voice he'd be begging for it. And Anna finally looked down at him and smiled and said, "Okay, pet, go ahead and come, you've earned it."

His first orgasm had felt like a hammer blow, this one felt surgical, a stab of pleasure, shivering through him and then gone, replaced by a warm, contented feeling. He rested his head on Anna's thigh and she laughed softly and petted his head, scratching behind his ears.

The contract reminding him that he couldn't be on the bed was an unwelcome intrusion, to say the least. Dammit. Just when he'd started to relax and enjoy himself. He tried to keep from making any noise, but he could hear himself whining as he pushed himself to a sitting position, then off the bed onto his feet.

"Hey, pet?" Anna said.

He turned around to see her scooting to the edge of the bed, sitting with her legs draped over the side. "C'mere?" she asked.

Gingerly, Hans knelt next to her, then leaned against her legs. She went back to scratching his ears, and he sighed, feeling the tension slip out of his body.

This was fine. They were making this work together. That was the best he could have asked for.

* * *

"Sooooooooooooo..." Elsa said at breakfast the next day, giving Anna a Look.

Anna hid her face behind her coffee cup as long as she was able to. "Um, yeah, so?"

"So you changed your mind?" Elsa elaborated. She brandished her fork, royally, then used it to stab a piece of herring.

Anna took another sip of coffee, then looked to Kristoff for guidance. He shrugged, not very helpfully.

Sunday breakfast was sort of a tradition that Anna had insisted on, since Elsa was so often busy with Queen stuff and Kristoff had to get up really early in the morning most days to go deal with ice things. It gave them all one morning a week to get together as a family, to enjoy each other's company... and to judge her for having sex with Hans, apparently.

"Well, it just sort of... happened," Anna said.

Elsa pulled a very dubious expression. "Like what, you slipped in the tub and fell on him?"

Anna knew she was being made fun of, but the mental image cracked her up and she giggled. "Not like that," she said when she got her breath back. "Kristoff was right, that's all."

Elsa raised her eyebrows and looked over at Kristoff. "Right about what?"

Kristoff had been mostly staying out of the conversation and had been spreading jam on his toast. Elsa caught him right when he was about to take a bite. "Ahhhhhhhh..."

"Nothing," Anna said.

"Nothing that important," Kristoff temporized.

Elsa looked dubious again.

"He said I'd think it was hot," Anna mumbled into her coffee.

"Anna," Elsa said.

"I know, I know," Anna said. "I know he's a jerk and he tried to kill you and he tried to kill me, but--"

Elsa held up a hand. "Not what I was going to say," she cut Anna off.

Anna sat back in her chair. "Oh," she said. "Sorry."

"I just want you to be okay with being in charge of him while this is going on," Elsa said. "And... knowing that once we get him out of the contract, it'll be over."

Anna put her coffee down and frowned at it. "Um."

"I mean," Elsa shrugged. "I know you've probably given it some thought, but I'm your big sister, I'm supposed to worry about you."

"Oh, yeah, I've totally thought this through," Anna lied, pouring more sugar in her coffee and stirring it. "Anyone else want another roll?"

"You okay?" Kristoff asked after breakfast when she'd retreated to her solar and started whacking paint onto a canvas.

"Oh yup, totally fine, absolutely one hundred percent not embarrassed at all that Ha--pet is going to be leaving here when his contract is up with memories of me bossing him around and screwing his brains out, no siree," she said.

"I'm sensing some sarcasm," Kristoff said.

"Little bit," Anna admitted.

Kristoff took the risk of stepping closer, now that she wasn't swinging paint around wildly, and kissed her on the back of the neck. "I don't think he's going to talk," he said. "If anything, he's more embarrassed about this whole thing than we are."

"I know," she said. "But... auuuugh. I didn't even think about 'when the contract is broken.' We still haven't heard anything."

"It takes time for mail to get places," Kristoff said reassuringly. "And for people to write back. It'll be fine."

"Fine," Anna echoed.

She cleaned up after painting and went back to their room to change to find Hans curled up and napping in his pile of pillows. She smirked and ducked into the bathroom to finish washing her hands, then went and flipped through her wardrobe. It had been getting a bit colder, but it wasn't quite _winter_ yet, so she didn't want to wear anything too warm...

Hans suddenly made a whimpering noise, and she turned around to see him scramble to his feet, then drop to his knees and cradle his head.

"That stupid 'stand up' thing?" she said.

He nodded.

"Okay, uh..." she looked around, but Kristoff was nowhere to be found. "I guess I can punish you for that?"

He looked relieved, and got to his feet. He looked at her expectantly for a few long seconds while she racked her brains and finally said, "So here's the thing, I have no idea what to do about this."

Hans gestured, and she added, "You can talk."

"Kristoff offered to hit me with his belt," Hans said.

That wasn't quite what she'd been expecting to hear, but she supposed, given the spanking Kristoff had given him the previous night... "Uh, well, I don't have a belt," she said. Hans wasn't wearing one, either; his clothes were tailored for suspenders to get around the tail thing. "What else?"

Hans looked down at the floor for a moment, then back up at her. "I have an idea?" he said. "I'll be back in just a minute?"

This was sounding like a bit more work than she wanted to go through for one stupid contract thing, but she was also slightly intrigued. "Sure," she said.

He stopped to pull on his jacket and boots, then he was out the door. She shrugged and went back to the question of her wardrobe, finally deciding that since it looked like she was going to get some exercise, wool was probably a bad idea. She'd just made her decision when Hans came back, breathing slightly rough from exertion, holding a bundle of birch twigs.

Anna raised her eyebrows, and Hans ducked his head and held them out to her.

"Hunh," she said, taking them. There were five or six small branches, each about as long as her forearm, stripped of leaves. He'd worked fast. She held them together tightly and tapped them on her palm and winced slightly. "Yeah, that'll punish... you sure about this?"

Hans nodded.

"Okay." She looked at the bed and frowned. "If I order you to put your hands on the bed, you think the contract will consider that okay?"

Hans hesitated this time, but nodded again. Anna shrugged and resettled the bundle in her hand. "Okay, well, when you're ready, put your hands on the bed and give me a signal, okay?"

She was a little surprised that Hans started stripping out of his clothes, slightly more surprised that he got entirely naked, but he disrobed down to his skin, put his hands on the bed, then gave her an expectant look.

"All right," she said. "Here goes nothing."

Her first strike hit him on the upper back, and he gasped, then nodded. Heartened, she struck him again, and again, until there was a patchwork of red lines across his shoulders. Then she switched to his butt, since he was thoughtfully keeping his tail out of the way, and he was making these little whimpering noises but he kept nodding every time she hit him, and that's when she started to get mad.

Part of her was paying attention to his expression, to the way he kept his eyes closed and his ears kept going back upright after flattening each time she hit. But part of her was remembering how he'd used her, how he'd lied to her, how she had trusted and been violated, and that part kept raining blows up and down his legs, down to his ankles (and he hissed and whimpered but didn't move and kept nodding) and back up to his back again, and harder, now, until he was crying out, and she was probably supposed to feel bad about this at some point but she just felt vindicated--

Until suddenly Hans jerked to his feet and she lowered the bundle of twigs and turned and saw Kristoff in the door, frowning. "Am I interrupting something?" he asked.

"Uh," Anna said. "Pet forgot to stand up again." Hans nodded a few times.

"Okay," Kristoff said. "That seems--oh, wait, woah."

Anna looked to where he was pointing, down at the twigs in her hand, which she belatedly realized were a little bit red.

"Oops," she said.

"Pet, why don't you lie down," Kristoff said. Hans looked startled, then winced when he tried to move. "Yeah, just... on your pillows, there. Anna, you want to get the stuff from the medicine cabinet?"

"Yes, yes I do," Anna said, dropping the branches on the ground.

The "stuff" Kristoff was talking about was good all-purpose salve for scrapes and cuts. She handed the jar to Kristoff, who had got Hans lying down on his stomach, and knelt down next to them on the floor.

Hans made a bigger fuss about getting his scrapes tended than he had about getting them in the first place. There wasn't really that much blood, just a few droplets here and there. But, she winced, it was more than she'd intended, and that felt bad.

"So whose idea was this?" Kristoff said.

"His," Anna said, at the same time Hans pointed at his own head.

"That figures," Kristoff said. "Take it easy, okay?"

Hans made a protesting noise. Kristoff laughed.

Anna smeared the salve into one of the bleeding cuts on Hans' back and he hissed. "I'm sorry," she said.

He shook his head, and she and Kristoff chorused, "You can talk."

"Don't be sorry," Hans said. "I would have... done something if I wanted you to stop."

"If you're sure," she said.

"Sure I'm sure," Hans said, and yawned. "Mmm, sorry, that was... it was good, don't worry."

That thought startled Anna enough that for a moment she stopped daubing Hans' welts. "Hunh," she said. "Okay."

"Hmm?" Kristoff said.

"Nothing," Anna said, going back to soothing Hans' broken skin. After all, she wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth, and if Hans didn't heal up, he'd hardly be interested in more of the same.

* * *

The only part Hans hated was the waiting.

Everything else was negotiable. Sure, the stupid parts of the contract were still annoying, and Anna and Kristoff were as sick and tired as he was of the furniture thing and the standing thing, but...

It was a lot more bearable since everyone was being so nice to him. He remembered exactly what he'd done on his last trip to Arendelle, so it was a little shocking that people were going out of their way to make sure he had the clothes he needed and as comfortable sleeping arrangements as could be provided and--

And then there was the sex, which was great and totally not something he wanted to be thinking about, because thinking about the sex made him start getting turned around. The bits where he didn't mind playing along with the punishment thing because it was getting Anna and Kristoff to trust him and the bits where he didn't want to be going without orgasms for weeks and the bits where it all felt really nice started getting mixed up in his head and he started thinking maybe he _didn't_ have it all under control, when in fact--

In fact, this was all part of the plan. Right.

Morning, he woke up to find Kristoff already gone. He went into the bathroom and splashed water on his face, then turned around to look at the welts on his back in the mirror. They were healing, but still red against his skin--he pressed on one of the lines on his shoulder and felt the nubby texture of the mark, and a shiver ran through him.

See, that--that was the kind of thing that was probably not altogether in the plan.

The door opened, and he turned to see Anna in the doorway, staring at him muzzily with her hair out of its braids and tangled into a fuzzy halo. "Oh," she said. "Sorry."

He opened his mouth to reply, because he still could never remember that stupid clause.

"Sorry, you're allowed to talk," Anna said.

"You don't have to apologize," he said. "I can give you some privacy--"

"Mmm," she said sleepily, and yawned. "Sure. I need to work on my hair, that'll take a while." She looked over at the bathtub, then back at Hans, a thoughtful look on her face. "Hey... when's the last time you were able to take a bath?"

So that's how he found himself in the bathtub with Princess Anna. It wasn't a large tub, and she was seated on top of him, soap-slick and warm.

"Sex purposes," he muttered into her hair. She giggled.

He was hyper-aware of her body as he washed her hair, working soap into the curls and massaging her scalp. He was acutely aware of his own body, where every part of his skin pressed up against hers.

When he was done washing her hair, she squirmed around until she was facing him and started washing him, running a washcloth down his chest, tilting his head forward and rubbing soap through his hair.

"It's going to take me a lot longer than normal to dry off," he said.

"Don't worry," Anna said. "We've got time."

She brushed wet hair back out of his eyes and he looked up to see her smiling at him. Without thinking about it, he leaned forward and kissed her.

For a moment, it was perfect. There wasn't any place for her to be but in his arms, and for a few seconds, she melted into him, soft and warm and inviting, her lips gentle against his. Then she jerked back, spell broken, and said, "What the heck?"

He stared dumbly at her, then tried, "I, uh, owed you one."

That was probably the absolute worst thing he could have said, he realized a moment later as she started to scowl at him. Nice going. Well done. He really was losing his edge.

Then Anna shoved him back against the wall of the tub, her thumbs digging in to his neck below the collar, and said, "You really should ask before you do something like that."

"Yes," he agreed.

She watched him for another second, then brought her mouth down on his.

Anna was very good at kissing, hot and hungry and passionate. He reached his arms around her waist and pressed her close, and she writhed against him.

And just when he thought that they would just keep kissing until the water went cold, Anna reached under the water and grasped his prick, and then--oh!

"Yes?" she broke the kiss to ask as she rubbed the head of his dick back and forth on her slit.

"Yeah--" he agreed, then groaned as she sank down on him. It had been far, far too long. Water sloshed over the sides of the tub as he thrust into her and she ground her hips back down against his, frenetic movements as they both attempted to get him deeper into her. He felt feverish, desperate. She still had her hands on his neck, her thumbs biting into his skin, and he leaned his head forward into hers to let her slip her thumbs up under his collar, where the sweat was pooling under the leather, making deeper furrows in his flesh. He ached to come, but he couldn't, visceral reminder of her power over him.

"Oh, fuck, Anna," he said.

She leaned forward and kissed him again in answer, her tongue sliding confidently into his mouth. Fuck, but she was full of surprises.

He wanted to make her come--not just to get off, but because he wanted to feel what it was like being inside her when she came--but he refused to move his hands to her clit until she wanted him to. She had complete control. He had to cede that to her.

After a while she relaxed and leaned back, slowing her pace, gently rocking with the water. He whimpered and she grinned. "Oh, did you want to come?"

He nodded, trying not to make any more embarrassing noises.

Anna looked pleased with herself and shifted her hips again. "Maybe later," she said. "C'mere, you have soap suds on your ears."

It was very. Very difficult. To fuck and let Anna wash him at the same time. He would have been amazed that she was capable of it, if he'd had any attention for being amazed. She poured water on his head and scrubbed his shoulders and occasionally hugged him close and moaned in his ears and it was way too much to keep track of. After a while he gave up, buried his face in her hair, wrapped his arms around her and just tried to hold on for dear life.

Anna grabbed one of his hands and brought it around to her clit, and there, that's what he'd been waiting for, he kissed and mouthed at her neck and sucked the sweat off her skin and rubbed his fingers against her clit, and she came, squeezing tight around him, keening and panting until she finally curled soft against his chest. He slipped his hand back to her ass and nuzzled at her.

"Mmm, you wanna come too?" she asked.

He nodded.

She patted the side of his face. "Let's get out of the water."

Hans let his head drop back and moaned as she slid off him and climbed out of the tub. It didn't take too much encouragement to climb after her. Their feet slapped on wet tile as she braced her hands on the side of the tub and looked back at him, flirtatious and expectant.

Hans took up a position behind her and slid his hands onto the warm flesh of her hips. The air was warm but he was already starting to chill, and the water caught in his hair and the damn extra fur was streaming water down his back and dripping down his legs. His tail felt even heavier when he tried to move it.

"Well, come on and fuck me," Anna said, and suddenly none of that mattered.

He slid into her and she gasped, then started moving with him, counterpoint, the slap of her hips against his stinging and stoking his desire even hotter. He drove himself into her over and over again until she cried out and came a second time, then said, "Yes, all right, come for me--"

Her hand slipped as he eagerly thrust into her and nearly sent both of them back into the water, but he grabbed the tub's edge and pulled her back against him as he shuddered and came, relief almost as powerful as pleasure flooding through him.

He gasped for breath and stood, and Anna recovered her balance and turned around to look at him, grinning. "Well," she said, then looked down at the floor. "Whoops."

Hans nodded a few times.

"There are extra towels in the cabinet over there," Anna said, pointing.

He nodded and followed her finger to the far wall. There were indeed extra towels. He handed one to Anna, who started toweling off her hair, and took a couple to start mopping up the floor.

Eventually he found himself sitting on the floor in front of the fire, wrapped in towels and letting Anna try to squeeze the water out of his tail. "It's not too bad," she said.

"I look like a drowned rat," he complained.

She smiled at him. "Not nearly that bad."

He stared into the fire and tried fluffing out his hair to dry it faster. It never worked, but he kept trying anyway. "Is Kristoff going to be upset that we..."

"What, without him?" She shrugged. "No, we've talked about it." She tilted her head. "He'll probably want the same privileges, though. I mean, if you're up for it."

"I..." He forced himself to stop thinking and just relax. "Anything you want, of course."

Anna rolled her eyes. "We really do want to know if you don't want to do anything, you know that, right?"

"Of course." His tail twitched in her hands and she laughed.

Of course he was happy to have sex with Kristoff, if Kristoff wanted. He was happy to do anything Kristoff and Anna wanted. They were relaxing around him and he was getting along well, and soon they would figure out how to break the contract and then...

Well, then he'd worry about what to do next, wouldn't he.

Eventually, his hair and his fur dried. He was cleaner than he'd been in a while, even given the sweating they'd done after soaping up. His clothes felt better over washed skin.

So when Kristoff found him in the library, he was feeling a bit smug. "I heard you and Anna had some fun," Kristoff said when Hans had made it to his feet.

Hans shrugged and smiled sheepishly.

Kristoff smirked and stepped closer, then reached up and took Hans by the nape of his neck. "Care to put studying off for a while?"

 _And I just had a bath,_ Hans thought, but he was nodding anyway.

Back in their room Kristoff pushed him down onto the bed and started kissing him. Hans felt dizzy, both from the rush of blood to his cock and from realizing suddenly just how _big_ Kristoff was, how strange it was to be covered by someone who out-massed him by two stone of muscle.

"You mind?" Kristoff asked as he started pulling Hans' shirt free of his trousers.

Hans shook his head in the negative.

Kristoff pushed the fabric up his ribs and dropped his head to start mouthing at the revealed skin. Hans felt his breath sticking in his throat, the heat of Kristoff's tongue dipping into his navel and traveling up his belly to his sternum. Hans wriggled his shirt further off, but Kristoff grabbed the fabric when he'd got it over his head and twisted, and Hans found his hands trapped and bound.

"Ah," he tried to say.

"You can talk," Kristoff murmured.

"Oh," Hans said. "I..."

Kristoff ran his hand down Hans' ribs. "You like this?"

"Yes," Hans said.

Kristoff nuzzled at his neck and licked, right above his collar, and then he felt Kristoff's free hand working his pants open. After a moment, Kristoff's palm was against his dick, and he was thrusting up against him, uselessly.

"Mmmm," Kristoff said. "Turn over."

He didn't really get it then, as he wiggled onto his front, hands still tangled in his shirt, and Kristoff stripped his pants off. He didn't get it until Kristoff slid his hand up under his tail and pressed at his asshole with rough fingers.

Hans froze.

"Hey," Kristoff asked. "You okay?"

"Of course," he replied. "Absolutely."

Kristoff made a disbelieving noise and slid his hand back up to Hans' hip. "Sure?"

"Yes, I mean it, anything you want," Hans said.

For a moment he didn't get any response, and then Kristoff was pushing him up onto the bed, and climbing up after him, and before he knew it they were spooning with Kristoff's hand cuddling him and Kristoff's knees poking into his. "Hey, what's going on?"

"Something upset you," Kristoff said, "And I'm not doing anything until you let me know what it is."

Hans unwound his hands from his shirt. "I told you, nothing is bothering me. I'm happy to do anything you tell me to."

Kristoff kissed him on the top of his head, which made him aware, for the first time, that his stupid ears were pressed back flat against his head.

"Um," Hans said.

"Your tail is a bit bristlier than normal, too," Kristoff said helpfully.

Hans groaned and slapped his hand over his eyes.

Kristoff kissed him on the head again. "Hey, it's all right. We don't have to do anything."

"Ugh, it's not that," Hans said, feeling disgusted with himself. "I've just... well, I've never done that before."

There was a brief silence, then Kristoff sat up and looked down at him with an awkward expression. "Really?"

"I've had things up my ass before," Hans said defensively. "I've just never had the opportunity."

"That surprises me," Kristoff said. "Aren't you a prince?"

Hans rolled onto his back and raised a finger. "And as a prince, and the youngest of thirteen, my free time was..." he grimaced. "Circumscribed. Monitored."

"Ah," Kristoff said.

"So it was a little difficult to find the time, and the privacy," he explained.

"I understand." Kristoff said. He ran his hand up Hans' thigh to his hip, and Hans shivered. "So if you want to try..?"

Hans narrowed his eyes, and reached up and tapped Kristoff on the chest. "Anything." He lowered his hand and ran his thumb across Kristoff's nipple. "You." Ran his hand down to Kristoff's half-undone trousers, stuck his hand in Kristoff's waistband, and gave it a tug. "Want."

"Ah," Kristoff said. "Okay, then."

He left Hans lying there on his back while he went and got something from his nightstand. Hans looked up and counted joints in the ceiling while he waited, trying not to shiver, until Kristoff returned, naked, sitting on the bed next to him. "Where do you want me?" Hans asked.

"You have a preference?" Kristoff said, and at Hans' head-shake, ordered, "Roll over and get a pillow under your hips."

Well. Hans did as he was told, swiping Kristoff's pillow--it seemed bad manners to take Anna's. He could hear Kristoff opening the jar he'd grabbed, and then a moment later, felt cold and slippery fingers slide over and then around his asshole. Hans hissed, but concentrated on keeping his tail out of the way. And when Kristoff's first finger slipped inside him, he sighed and rested his forehead on the bed, working to relax.

"Mmm," he said as Kristoff worked another finger in. "Yeah."

"Okay," Kristoff said. "Ready?"

It seemed sudden, but--"Yeah, of course," Hans said, tilting his hips forward.

Kristoff grumbled, but Hans felt him moving around, pushing his knees further apart. And then Kristoff was on top of him, and he was--he was--

Kristoff's dick was big, that he knew, he'd had it in his mouth, but feeling it stretching him open was different. He bit his lip and wiggled and bore down and pushed back until it finally slipped inside him, and then he gasped as inches upon inches slid into him and Kristoff finally lay on top of him, snug and warm and tall and kind of heavy, even braced on his elbows.

"Oh," he said.

Kristoff nuzzled at his head, for a moment the same comforting presence he'd been. "Mmm?"

Hans nodded. "Yeah."

"Mmm." Kristoff reached up, petted him on the head briefly, then grabbed him by the wrists. Both wrists in one huge hand, pinned to the bed, and then Kristoff was fucking him--driving the breath out of him, driving him into the mattress every second, thrusting hard and fast and deep and oh, oh, that was new, that was glorious.

It was overwhelming and almost painful and blissful and he couldn't think, couldn't reason, could barely move, could only hold on and ride the feelings coursing through him. He was stretched and full and Kristoff was rutting right into the spot he always sought with his own fingers, over and over again, deep and hot and hard. And he couldn't move--couldn't wiggle or push back or even move his hands, and he put his head down and moaned and let himself stop thinking and go.

It felt like Kristoff fucked him for hours.

After a while, the urgency of orgasm faded into the back of his mind. He couldn't come, so he plateaued, body desperately trying to find release, mind still and calm. His whole body ached with it, but he could do nothing, just rock forward and back as Kristoff's cock invaded him and stretched him and made him feel complete and overwhelmed and taken and whole. Kristoff occasionally paused and leaned forward over him, and he felt at those moments ridiculously slight and small, like Kristoff could just pick him up and carry him if he wanted, and he shivered and opened his legs wider and dropped his head to take, take, take.

"Pet?" Kristoff panted.

Hans couldn't talk. He nodded.

"When I come," Kristoff said, "I want you to come." He took a deep breath. "Okay?"

Hans nodded again.

It didn't take long after that. Kristoff was on the edge, had been for a while, ground out his orgasm against Hans' hips with a groan and a few final, sharp thrusts.

Hans' orgasm hit like a wave, like a lightning strike. Not just his dick, his entire body felt like it was consumed by fire. He must have yelled, but he could still barely move, pinned down and squirming under Kristoff's body, sticky and sweaty and spasming against this immense rock of a man who was holding him still, until finally he was lying flat on the bed panting with Kristoff lying next to him, both of them desperately trying to catch their breath.

"Holy shit," Kristoff said.

Hans nodded. He worked his fingers, feeling coming back into his wrists.

Kristoff looked over at him and smiled. "So not too bad, huh?"

Hans wasn't sure if he should nod or shake his head, wound up nodding again. Kristoff chuckled and reached up to scratch his ears. Hans dropped his head and sighed in bliss.

That was amazing, he thought, completely lost in contentment. He was glad this had all happened...

Wait.

What?

The building tension in his head from the contract let him know he'd been lying on the bed too long, and gave him an excuse to get away from Kristoff. "Contract?" Kristoff asked when he stood up, and Hans nodded. "Eesh, sorry. Everything else good?" Hans nodded again, gave Kristoff the brightest smile he could, and headed for the bathroom to clean up, to get more distance.

He closed the door behind him and stared at himself in the mirror.

Fuck. What was that?

He grabbed a washcloth and wetted it, and started cleaning himself off. He cast a glance at the empty bathtub and had to suppress a sudden shiver. All the traces of his and Anna's earlier trysting had been cleaned up, the towels replaced and the water cleaned off the floor. Hans felt another twinge of--desire? Satisfaction? Something?

This had gone badly wrong. He wasn't supposed to enjoy this. He was supposed to be using this situation to his advantage until he could get out. He wasn't supposed to feel _happy--_

He twisted the washcloth in his hands and whimpered. He had felt happy. And safe, and satisfied, and dammit.

He needed to get out of here and fast. No more waiting passively for the royal family of Arendelle to figure things out. He needed to do what he should have done from the beginning, and take things into his own hands.

* * *

Hans' first stop was to reread the contract, in full.

He knew what was in it, of course, but he'd just been reading up on how these things worked, and the language was very important. He skipped all the stuff it said that he couldn't do or had to do and focused on the framing language itself.

He'd been signed to the possession of 'the married couple Anna and Kristoff Bjorgman'. There it was.

The easiest way to break a contract was to change the status of the person the contract was written for. If a contract was written to "Prince so-and-so" who became "King so-and-so" (or demoted to no-longer-Prince so-and-so), the contract would be null and void, and all its effects removed. So the easiest way to break the contract was to break Anna and Kristoff's marriage.

So he was going to do that.

He started a slowly-escalating campaign of whispers and misinformation to start sowing the seeds of mistrust. He didn't have a lot to work with, but he knew their habits and their intimate lives well by now, and planting suggestions was more effective than outright lying, anyway.

For a week, he did his best. But nothing stuck. Anna and Kristoff... they were just too nice! Too talkative! Too good at comparing notes and figuring out their differences of opinion and miscommunications.

Part of him wanted to stop. He assumed it was just a twinge of sentiment and smothered it. It wasn't until Anna and Kristoff walked into the library, both of them looking like several kinds of fury and vengeance, that he recognized that twinge as self-preservation and realized he should have listened to it.

"Ah," Hans said, the word sticking in his throat as he scrambled to his feet.

"Our room," Anna said sharply. "Now."

Their combined room was chilly with the fire out, and a little dark, and also full of awkward reminders that he was completely dependent on Anna and Kristoff for everything right now. He stopped in the middle of the room and turned to face them, hoping against hope that this wasn't as bad as it looked.

Anna nodded at the bed. "Sit down."

"Uh," he said.

She rolled her eyes. "Yes, you can talk."

"I'm not allowed," he reminded her.

"I'll. Deal. With. You. Later," she bit off sharply. "Sit down."

Hans sat. Anna glared and crossed her arms. Kristoff just sighed and looked disappointed.

"So, uh," Hans said when neither of them had said anything. "What's this about?"

"Seriously?!" Anna exploded. "I knew you were a liar when I agreed to this, but do you really think I'm so stupid as to believe you don't know what's going on?"

"The gossip," Kristoff said. "The insinuations."

"The _lies,"_ Anna repeated herself.

"The misconceptions," Kristoff said. "Almost like you were trying to cause trouble."

"The trouble-causing," Anna said. "That's what clued me in."

"What the heck are you trying to do?" Kristoff asked. "That's what I don't get. Why make us fight if you can't do anything while you're under that contract?"

Hans swallowed, then said, "Because... I can't do anything while I'm under this contract."

Anna scowled. "We know. That's why we're trying to--"

"'The married couple Anna and Kristoff Bjorgman'," Hans quoted, cutting her off. "If you get divorced the contract doesn't hold."

They stared at him. Then they looked at each other, in a kind of creepy synchronization that indicated Hans' plan for breaking them up had been a lot more futile than he'd thought.

"Really?" Kristoff said.

"That's all it takes?" Anna said. "Why... why didn't you just say something?"

Hans mustered enough energy to shake his head. He'd never felt quite this hopeless. Even the first time he'd been thrown out of Arendelle. Even when his brothers had thrown him in the dungeon and bound him to the rotten contract in the first place. Even when he'd watched Anna and Kristoff sign the thing. He'd always believed he'd figure out a way out, he'd wriggle free like he always did.

"We... could have just, y'know, _gotten divorced,"_ Kristoff said. "You could have just asked us."

Hans lifted his head and stared at him. Kristoff looked completely serious, and he wasn't particularly good at bluffing. Hans turned his head to look at Anna, who still looked angry, but... also like she agreed with her husband.

"What?" Hans asked, still not quite sure he'd heard right.

"I mean, sure, it's a hassle," Kristoff said, "But if it would break the contract, well..."

"Sure," Anna said. "We could do that."

"But..." Hans kept looking from Kristoff's face to Anna's, searching for any sign that they were being facetious. Nothing. "But why would you..."

"I dunno, because it's the right thing to do?" Anna said. "I mean, maybe you don't know what that's like, being as your first instinct is to start lying and misleading people, but some of us actually want to be helpful."

Hans shook his head again. "But..."

"I just don't get it," Kristoff said. "Why now? What changed? We've started getting letters back from those professors we wrote to, and okay, they don't have concrete suggestions so far, but--"

"I _couldn't,"_ Hans blurted.

Anna and Kristoff frowned at him in stereo.

"Couldn't?" Anna said.

"Wuh... uh, was it the sex?" Kristoff said awkwardly. "I mean, we've... we can stop, if you--I figured we would stop, obviously, but if it was something--"

"I was glad," Hans said to stop Kristoff's awkward nervous babbling. "I was glad it happened. Something changed and I was glad that I'd gotten caught and punished and thrown at your mercy and signed to that damn piece of paper, and all I wanted was to stay here and be your--your _pet,_ your _slave,_ your _slut,_ forever." He was shaking as he spat out the words, unable to look up at them, tasting bile in the back of his throat and waiting for something to happen to stop the torrent of words.

When nothing happened and he was still breathing he looked up to see the both of them staring at him. "No wonder you despise me," he finally said.

Anna blinked a few times and raised a hand. "Pet..." she said. "No, that's not it at all."

Hans stared at her, confused, and felt his ears twitch against his head.

Anna sighed and sat down on the bed next to him. He watched her dubiously as she reached out and took his left hand in both of hers, shockingly gentle. "I hate--I was _furious_ at you," she corrected herself, "Because you lied to me, you betrayed me, and you tried to kill my sister. And you never even apologized."

Anna seemed completely sincere. She'd always been naive, but surely... "That's it?" Hans finally asked.

She scoffed and rolled her eyes. "Isn't that enough?"

But that's how you play the game, he thought, but his throat closed on the words.

"Most people don't think you should try to kill anyone," Kristoff said, sitting down on Hans' other side, "Even to rule a kingdom."

Hans shook his head again disbelievingly.

"I trusted you," Anna said. "And okay, maybe that was dumb of me, but you took advantage of me. It's not my fault that you lied."

"And... about the other stuff," Kristoff said. "It's not that strange."

Hans swiveled to stare at Kristoff, instead. It was nice to have a change, but his head was starting to spin.

"Yeah," Anna agreed. "Plenty of people enjoy, y'know, getting ordered around, or punished, or humiliated. For sex."

"I'm actually surprised you didn't know that," Kristoff said, eyes narrowing.

"Considering the kinds of parties we got invited to in Corona," Anna said, "I figured if anyone would know..."

Hans gaped at her. 'Parties?' he mouthed.

"Yeah, we saw all kinds of stuff," Anna said. "Remember that one with the swing over the bed?"

"And the other one where all the women got put in cages?" Kristoff said, "And all the guys got bunches of grapes, and if she caught your grape in her mouth then you got to--"

"Or! Oh!" Anna interrupted him, "The one where all the guys were dressed like baby deer, and we wore tailcoats with nothing under them and chased you around with riding crops--"

"Hey!" Kristoff protested, holding up his hands. "The first rule of Faun Club is you don't talk about Faun Club."

Hans found himself shaking his head slowly from side to side, wondering how the hell he'd somehow missed, in his exhaustive study of social climbing, the seedy side of high society that Anna and Kristoff had stumbled into on their first ever trip out of their country.

"I mean," Anna said, patting Hans' hand, "Maybe it helps to be married? That's how Eugene and 'Punzel vouched for us, anyway. They really didn't want unmarried men showing up."

"That's probably it," Kristoff said.

Anna shrugged. "So, yeah, we don't despise you for getting off on... well, all this," she said. "I was actually kind of relieved, since, well, it wasn't like we could just snap our fingers and get you out of here."

Hans was staring, he knew he was staring like an idiot, but he still couldn't speak and he still couldn't really believe what he was hearing.

Kristoff cleared his throat. "You can talk, if you want."

Hans coughed, swallowed, and croaked, "What do I even say?"

"You could say you're sorry," Anna said testily.

Hans looked down at his hands, feeling the room swim around him. "I... I am," he finally admitted. "Sorry. For--"

It hit him, suddenly, like a kick to the stomach, how incredibly stupidly _lucky_ he was, and how he'd been working to undermine and destroy the people who had given him second and third chances he hadn't earned. "Oh," he said. "I am so sorry. I didn't think I could... how could I even..."

Kristoff sighed and put his hand on the back of Hans' neck, warm and steady. "Pet," he said, "You are very bad at apologizing."

"Sorry," Hans said again. He took a deep breath. "For lying, for not trusting you, for..." he looked over at Anna, who was staring bemusedly at him. He smiled bitterly and said, "For hitting the Princess of Arendelle with my horse, and everything that happened after."

Anna broke into a startled laugh. "See?" she said. "I knew you knew how."

He felt shaky, but suddenly like a weight pressing on his chest had lifted. Kristoff stood up and grinned at him for a second, then reached down and unbuckled his belt.

"Now," Kristoff said, folding his belt over in his hand. "Do you know why I'm going to have to punish you?"

Hans took a breath. "Well, uh, for the lying? And the sneaking, and the betrayal, and... all of that?"

Kristoff shrugged, smirking. "Well, yeah, all that," he said. "But more importantly..."

"More importantly," Anna echoed, bounding to her feet, "Pets aren't allowed on the furniture."

The flash of heat he felt was not at all rational. But as he got to his feet, and started taking off his own clothing, Hans found he didn't care as much as he used to.

* * *

Elsa stared at the two of them, a bemused and apprehensive expression on her face, and said, "I really, really, really wish you wouldn't."

"Well, why not?" Anna said, looking over at Kristoff, then back at her sister. "It would only be for a few days, nobody would have to know. And if it releases pet from this contract..."

Elsa bit her lower lip and squeezed her hands together. "Well, the problem is," she said, "Remember all of those invocations for the health of Arendelle and good fortune for our people that happened during the ceremony?"

"Yeah," Kristoff said. "That was pretty, there were a bunch of really old traditional ones..." he trailed off. "Wait a minute."

"You mean," Anna said, "That was all magic?"

Elsa held up her hands. "Not... not magic like..." she gestured, and a ball of blue icy wind congealed above her hand. "But it's magic-ish. It's all part of the marriage contract."

"Contracts," Anna grumbled. "So wait, you're saying that if we do get divorced, Arendelle gets bad luck and horrible things happen?"

"No!" Elsa laughed, but it sounded strained. "Not... necessarily. I don't think. But. Um." She looked sheepish. "Why don't you talk to Grand Pabbie, just to be sure? He knows a lot more about how this plays out in the real world than I do."

Anna didn't want to say anything to Hans until they had a full answer, so they bundled up and headed into the mountains to talk to Kristoff's family. When they got there, the news wasn't any better.

"It wouldn't work, in any case," Pabbie said.

"What?" Kristoff said. "Why?"

Pabbie shook his head. "You intend to divorce and remarry, correct? So you don't see it as an interruption of your marriage?"

"Well..." Anna looked over at Kristoff, who shrugged. "Not really, I mean, we weren't going to stop, uh, being in love with each other and wanting to be married, it's just a contract thing. Right?"

Pabbie sighed. "Magical intent does matter," he said. "You are not intending to break your marriage contract, so for the purposes you intend, it will not actually be broken."

"Great," Anna grumbled as they headed back to the castle. "I thought this was going to be easy."

"We'll think of something," Kristoff reassured her.

Anna sighed and leaned against him. The soft sound of the sled skis over snow was lulling her to sleep. "I mean, it's not even that I want to get rid of him," she said, halfway to herself.

There was a long silence after that with only the sound of the wind and the runners to keep her mind company, and then finally Kristoff said, "Wait, do you mean you want to have him as a sex slave forever, or do you mean after he gets out of the contract? Because I'm not actually comfortable with either of those."

Anna sat upright. "Um. I'm not really sure what I meant. But no, not either of those."

"Okay," Kristoff said. "So what do you want?"

She looked at him. He was watching the road, but looked back at her and raised an eyebrow.

"I..." she said carefully, "Want what's best for our marriage."

He laughed. "Okay, okay, but really, if you could have everything you wanted. Assume I'm not going to freak out just because you _tell_ me."

"Well, that's not any easier," she said grumpily. "What I _want_ is for pet to not ever lie or cheat or scheme ever again, and I don't know that he's capable of that... without the contract. And even with it, he tried that whole splitting-us-up thing."

"Which was easier to figure out when I started watching his ears," Kristoff said pensively. "He's really bad at controlling them."

"Really bad," Anna echoed. "Anyway, I don't want this contract either. I want our bedroom back. I want to maybe take a vacation again, ever. I want to not have to give him permission to talk and spank him whenever he wants to sit on a chair."

"Yeah, that's kind of counterproductive, isn't it," Kristoff said.

"Mmmm." She sighed. "I mean, I kinda... wish we could just rewrite it," she said. "I mean... if he'd be okay with that."

"Hmm," Kristoff said.

"Mmm," she said again.

They sat in silence for a while as Sven trotted downhill and around the curves leading toward town. "Okay, so," Kristoff said, "You're saying that you'd like him to stick around, but under a contract, but under a contract that isn't as awful as this one?"

"Yeah, I guess," Anna said. "Does that sound too selfish?"

"I dunno," Kristoff said. "I mean, it's been kinda fun, I'm not going to argue. And if it wasn't so... so... ridiculous, I guess..."

"It's hard to believe he's actually saying yes to things if he can't really say no," Anna said glumly.

"Exactly," Kristoff said.

Anna chewed on her lip until she realized she was doing it and forced herself to stop. "But if he could say no," she said, "If he didn't depend on us for orgasms and to stay out of trouble and to talk to people..."

"That would be better," Kristoff agreed. "We can ask him."

"That doesn't matter unless we could change the contract," Anna said. "And we can't."

"Right," Kristoff said.

They rode in silence for a while.

"Wait a minute, why can't we change it?" Anna said. "That doesn't seem right. There has to be some kind of loophole."

Kristoff shrugged. "I wouldn't know."

The first place she went when they returned to the castle was the library. Hans bounded to his feet when they entered, and tilted his head inquiringly.

Anna winced inwardly. "Heyyyy, uh, well..."

"Grand Pabbie doesn't think it'll work," Kristoff said. "Also you're allowed to talk."

"Well, fuck," Hans said.

Anna sighed. "Yeah. Have any more letters come in?"

Hans shrugged. "The professors at Wittenberg wrote some more technical stuff parsing the prepositions, but they don't sound very encouraging. Nothing more from Gormenghast, but their last letter was pretty final. And I haven't turned up anything here." He seemed a lot more sanguine about their lack of progress than she would have assumed, considering that only a couple days ago he'd been actively trying to ruin their marriage just to leave. But now here he stood, ears not even twitching as he ran down the miserably short list of possibilities and the dire prognosis for each one.

"Um..." Anna said, and had Hans' full attention. "There was another idea... do you know of any way we could use a loophole to kind of... rewrite the contract? While we look for a way to break it?"

Hans went very still, and his ears swiveled backwards--not all the way flat, just kind of... down.

"Well," he said. "I did read something."

He was quiet for a few seconds. Anna looked at her husband, who shrugged. "Go on?" she said.

"There's one big problem with it," Hans said. "It makes the contract permanent."

Anna frowned. "Hang on," she said. "I thought it was already permanent. I mean, there isn't anything in there about it ending."

Hans shifted his weight from his left to his right foot, then back again. "Well, no, not exactly," he said. "But all those tricks and loopholes I've been reading about to try and dissolve it, all the stuff that the theoreticians are working on, that all stops working."

"Woah," Kristoff said softly.

"Yeah," Hans agreed. "It basically just leaves brute force, or, uh, all of us dying. And no, I don't really want to try that."

"Good," Kristoff said after a moment of silence. "Not dying is good."

As Anna's mind raced in circles of _That might be okay?_ and _That would never work,_ Hans sighed and said, "So of course that's out of the question. Hosting me this long has been an inconvenience, keeping me indefinitely would be some kind of personal and diplomatic nightmare."

Annd stared at him. "That's... an odd objection."

Hans raised one shoulder casually and let it drop. "You've been very gracious, of course. But we couldn't have you supporting me indefinitely even if it meant a reduction in your responsibilities."

"But..." she said, "Pet, what do _you_ want?"

Kristoff made a startled, strangled noise, and she looked over to see him staring at her, surprised and a little dismayed.

"I mean, we should talk about this," Anna temporized. "We should consider all our options."

She looked over at Hans, to find him outwardly serene--that was, if you ignored his ears and tail, which were as droopy and miserable as she'd ever seen, even counting when he'd first been dropped off by his brothers into their lap.

"Forever's a long time," Kristoff said. "We'd have to be really careful what we agreed to."

"Anything's better than what we have now," Anna said.

"Yes, but--" Kristoff gestured vaguely, then ran his hand through his hair. "For the rest of our lives? We can't just do this because it's better than we have now. We have to do this because it's something we all _want."_

She looked over at Hans, who was calmly standing with his hands clasped behind him, staring past them at the wall. "Pet?"

"Mmm?" Hans asked, turning to her and suddenly focusing.

"You didn't answer my question," she said. "What do you want?"

"Oh, well, does it really matter that much?" Hans said.

"Well," Anna exchanged another glance with Kristoff. "Yes?"

Hans took a deep breath and his shoulders slumped to match his ears. "I might as well admit I don't know, then," he said shakily. "I thought I wanted power, wanted to do something with my life, and now I'm seriously considering..."

There was a long pause and Hans looked off into the distance again. "Well," he said, finally. "Well."

Anna bit her lip before she started demanding 'well well what'. "You don't have to decide anything right now, pet," she said instead.

Hans still wasn't looking at her, but he smirked and his ears twitched. "Oh, deciding isn't the problem." He held out a hand. "Twist my arm."

"Huh?" Anna said.

Hans looked up at her and raised his eyebrows, then twitched his hand.

"Uh, okay," she said.

Anna grabbed his hand and pulled, and he came meekly forward. She twisted his arm sideways, and he went to his knees, letting her bend his wrist up behind him.

"Mmm," he moaned under his breath. He was still looking past her instead of at her, but his ears were perked up and he looked far more intent. "I... I want..."

Anna pulled Hans' wrist upward and he gasped. "Please," he said. "Please let me stay, please keep me, I'll do anything you want, you don't have to change anything, just let me stay, please, fuck--"

"Wow," Anna said. "You sure?"

"Yes, _fuck,_ I'm sure," Hans said. He looked up, and his eyes were as wide and sincere as she'd ever seen. "Keep me, make me your slave, your pet, yours--" he stuttered and put his other hand over his eyes and whimpered. "I don't deserve it, I don't deserve any of this, but please, please--"

"Hey, hey--" and suddenly Kristoff was there next to her, and he reached out and started petting Hans' hair. Hans made another little whimpering noise and leaned into his touch. Anna looked up at Kristoff, and he gave her a querying glance.

Anna nodded, and he nodded back.

"We want you to stay," Anna said, and Hans gasped.

 _"Oh,"_ he said after a second. "I didn't... really think that you did." He took a deep breath. "I'm not really sure what I was going to do."

"You would have thought of something," Anna said.

"I always do," Hans agreed. He looked up at Kristoff and his tail twitched. "You both--"

"Yeah," Kristoff reassured him. "It's just, well."

"Trust issues," Anna said.

Hans laughed, closing his eyes and shaking his head. "Of course. Right." He looked up again, serious. "I meant it, when I said we didn't have to change anything."

"Uh," Anna said. "We need to change things."

"We really need to change things," Kristoff agreed. "The name thing. The furniture thing."

"The talking thing," Anna said.

"Good point," Hans said. He tugged against Anna's hand, and she tightened her grip reflexively. "Ah. I might need that?"

She smirked at him. "You might."

He beamed at her, and she was struck by how happy and relieved he looked. "All right. Well, the more we change in the contract, the harder it gets to make additional changes. So..."

"So we need a plan," Kristoff said.

Anna let Hans' wrist go and he stretched out his shoulder, then climbed to his feet. "Well," he said, then stopped and laughed silently and gestured at the door.

"See, yeah, we can talk about that," Anna said, stepping back and grinning. "Come on."

* * *

Hans did know what he wanted.

Well, he'd always been good at knowing what he wanted, and going and getting it. But he'd never had the opportunity to find out how much he wanted... well, this.

This being, someone he could actually trust, not just someone he'd tricked. Someone who could trust him. Someone who wanted him. Somewhere he fit in, and could be... himself. He'd always thought he wanted responsibility, but it turned out he also enjoyed it when all of his responsibilities and all of his power were taken away from him.

Anna and Kristoff had more objections to the contract in its current form than he did, amusingly enough. Though he agreed with them about the most urgent changes. Sleeping on the floor was murder on his back.

"Are you ready?" he asked them later that evening, awkwardly bent over the desk where the contract and the list of changes they'd agreed on were arranged.

"I don't see why you have to do the writing," Kristoff said again. "Wouldn't it make more sense for someone who can sit down?"

"And as I argued, the contract is going to fight back, with pain." Hans plucked the quill from its inkwell. "So it's best I be the one writing."

"Hmm," Kristoff temporized as Anna pulled a chair up to the table. Kristoff took his own chair, then reached up and pulled Hans into his lap.

Hans bit down a yelp and resettled himself. "What are you--"

"Comfortable?" Kristoff said.

He hated being touched and manhandled, unless it was Kristoff or Anna doing it. Hans smiled to himself and said, "Promise you won't stop doing that."

"Doing what?"

"Never mind." Hans tested the quill on their note paper, then took a deep breath. "Here we go."

As soon as he put pen to parchment, the burning started in his fingertips. He hissed and put a line through the clause 'The slave must not be referred to by his name, or he will be punished.'

The page started to glow with red light as he moved on to the line about only using furniture for sex purposes. When that was gone, he struck out the line about only sleeping on the floor. The burning sensation had flooded the rest of his hand and was creeping up his arm, as though he'd stuck his hand in a furnace. He wiped sweat away from his eyes with his free hand and dipped the quill in ink again.

The contract was fighting back, now, ink refusing to stick to the page and hissing and spattering when he tried to make a line. He had to drag the pen several times through the line about not being able to speak before the amendment stuck.

His hand started cramping with heat and pain, and he took a deep breath and brought his pen down to his signature.

"Wait," Anna said as he re-signed the contract. "What about the--"

Hans finished signing his name and held up the pen. "Quickly, please?"

"But--" Anna objected again. Kristoff plucked the pen from Hans' fingers and signed his name over, then handed the pen to Anna. "Well, okay, but I thought--"

 _"Please,"_ Hans said, and she took the pen and signed.

For an instant, the pain was overwhelming, and he had to sag into Kristoff's arms to keep from falling over. And then it was gone, gone, the contract was glowing a warm golden and nothing hurt.

"I thought we were going to get rid of the thing about 'has to present his body for his master's use once a day,'" Anna said.

"Mmmmmmm," Hans said. "I don't care."

"Well..." Anna said. "What if we get in a fight! Or we want to go on vacation, or you do, or--"

"Mmmmmmmm," Hans said again, closing his eyes and leaning into Krisoff's arms. "It's okay."

Anna sighed, and patted him on the arm. "Hans," she said.

He hissed and braced himself, and then nothing happened.

"Ohhh, fuck," he said, head spinning with relief, and nearly fell out of Kristoff's arms.

"Thank goodness," Kristoff muttered into his hair.

His name. He had his _name_ back.

"Thank you," he said, as Anna reached out to scratch the back of his head and ruffle his hair.

"I guess this is good," Anna said. "It's most of what we talked about, and all the important stuff's changed."

Hans nodded, his head spinning. "Furniture," he said under his breath. "Talking."

Kristoff nuzzled at the top of his head. "Not getting kicked out of bed the minute you orgasm."

"Yeah," Hans said dreamily.

"Speaking of which..." Anna said, getting to her feet. She reached out and rolled the contract up and stuck it in her pocket, then grinned at him.

Hans climbed to his own feet and felt Kristoff stand behind him. "This means I do have to ask if either of you wants to fuck me."

"Yeah," Kristoff said, on top of Anna saying, "Yes, the answer is yes."

"C'mon, Hans," Kristoff added, pulling him by the arm. "Let's find that bed."

Hans felt himself flushing with embarrassment as he followed them into their room. "You... you can still call me pet, you know," he said. "I kind of like it."

"Good," Anna said as she pulled him onto their bed. "I intend to."

Eventually, Hans fell asleep on their bed, and that was almost sweeter than everything that came before.

* * *

"So," Kristoff asked her, later. "Happy?"

"Mmmmm," she said. "Yeah, I think so."

Hans was passed out between them on their bed. She had been thinking about getting him his own room, but he looked so comfortable she didn't want to move him. Besides, their bed was big enough for three.

She reached out and petted the stripe of fur on Hans' back, reached up to scratch underneath his collar. He made a humming sound in his sleep and his ears flicked, but otherwise he didn't move.

"Is it weird," she suddenly felt moved to ask, "That I'm feeling really possessive of a guy who tried to kill me?"

Kristoff shrugged. "Yeah?"

She glared at him.

"Yeah, it's weird," he repeated, smiling fondly at her, "But that's okay. Nothing wrong with weird."

She giggled, and he leaned over Hans and kissed her. That took a few seconds, and when he leaned back and gazed up at her his eyes were practically glowing. "I'm glad you said yes," he said.

"Huh?"

Kristoff waved at Hans' body. "Back when this all started. When his brothers showed up and asked if you wanted to sign that contract. I meant what I said, I would have backed you either way, but... I would have felt guilty, and I think you would have too. I'm glad it worked out."

She looked away. "It almost didn't."

"But it did. And that's on you." He reached over and squeezed her shoulder. "Yeah, it's gonna be tougher than the other way, but I'm glad."

"I feel kind of selfish," she admitted.

"Well, if you're selfish, then I am, too," Kristoff said. He reached down and pulled the sheet and then the blanket over the three of them, reaching up to scratch Hans' ears.

Hans made a sleepy noise, then blinked his eyes open. "Oh," he said. "I should go--"

"Stay," Anna and Kristoff said at the same time. She grinned at her husband, then pushed Hans down into the pillows. "Just get some sleep."

Hans stopped his halfhearted attempt to move and sank back down to the bed. "Mmm," he said. "Can't believe... lucky." He yawned and shook his head. "Never got this nice a spot telling the truth before."

Anna put out her light and snuggled under the covers next to him, and she heard Kristoff doing the same on the other side of the bed. "Guess you finally figured it out."

"Thank you," Hans said quietly. "For everything."

"You're welcome, pet," she said. "Now get some sleep. We'll figure out the rest in the morning."


End file.
